Liang's Outdoor Katydid Rearing and Breeding Enclosure is Complete!

It took us a week of planning and two days of hard work, but we are proud to present to you our home-made katydid rearing and breeding terrarium. Tutorial included!

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If you have been following our recent Orthoptera posts, you probably know that both of our katydids -- the Mediterranean Katydids (Phaneroptera nana) and Mexican Bush Katydids (Scudderia mexicana) -- are now quickly eclosing into adult now that it is July and breeding them is just around the corner. As a recap, we are now having a huge wave of our ~50 Mediterranean Katydids molting into adult all throughout this week and we already have five Mexican Bush Katydid adults with three others in sixth instar (one away from adult). Of course, there are both males and females adults of each.

For months since we have first starting rearing these katydids, we have kept them in very simple and admittedly dreadful glass aquarium tanks indoors. The tanks are not at all large enough to house 50 Mediterranean Katydids and we paid the cost of severe cannibalism; as for the Mexican Bush Katydids which began eclosing into adults earlier, it was clearly not an ideal mating zone or place to fly around (as adults, they have fully developed wings and well suited to fly) and they just seemed very miserable in the tank. On top of the overcrowding and generally lacking in environmental and habitat technicalities, the tank method lacked fresh food (no live plant) and was unsanitary due to the fact that the bottom was sealed and the frass just kept building up. And since the tanks were kept indoors, they had little exposure to sunlight. Katydids, like all insects, are cold-blooded and habitually bask themselves in sunlight during the day (they are nocturnal) in order to maintain optimal health. 

Today, we finally completed making our new enclosures to solve these problems, encourage breeding, and generally improve their quality of living. Basically, the enclosures are large boxes (2 feet x 2 feet base with one having a height of 4 feet and the other 3 feet) with window screening covering all faces to provide ventilation, sunlight, and visual acuteness. The bottom is open to allow frass to exit the enclosure. Inside of it, we put a live potted plant (Blue Morning Glory [Ipomoea acuminata] and Passionflower [Passiflora mixta x manicata "Susan Brigham"]) to not only provide a fresh supply of fresh foliage but also to allow us to place the entire enclosure outside.

So now that you've seen it, without further ado, the following is a little tutorial on how to make one of these home-made katydid terrariums yourself (it is also great for other insects too, of course!):
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Liang's Home-made Outdoor Rearing Enclosure Tutorial
Set up time: 2-3 hours. (Worth the time? Yes!)
Materials (Worth the money? Yes!!):

• Four pieces of long and thin wood. These can be easily found in the lumber section at Home Depot. To make one box, we used four pieces of 8 feet wood, each for 97 cents.
• Mesh window screening. This can also be found at Home Depot for a reasonable price. We bought a big 25 feet role with a width of 3 feet for $16.
• Some thread.
• Carpenter's glue, small nails, and a hammer for construction. 
• Pins
• A potted plant.
• Also a saw if the wood pieces aren't the right sizes.

How to do it:

1. Cut the wood pieces using a saw so that there are eight equally sized pieces to fashion the base and top and four equally sized pieces for the height. We highly recommend that height is the same as the width of the screening. For example, if you bought a role of screening with a width of 3 feet like we did, you would cut out wood pieces for the height that are also 3 feet.
2. First, construct two of the side frames. For each side, take two of the base pieces and two of the height pieces and glue the ends together with the carpenter's glue to make a rectangle (or square). Wait a few minutes for the glue to set in.
3. Nail the ends of the frames together where you applied the glue using some short nails and a hammer. This is probably the most difficult procedure in the process. 
4. Take the two side frames and stand them up vertically, on their sides. Apply glue at each of the ends. Take two of the base pieces and put one each at each of the ends to connect the two side frames complete the third face of the box. 
5. Like before, nail the pieces in place after the glue has begun to dry. Try using longer nails this time to make it more effective. 
6. Once the third face is complete, the box should be complete except for one side. Turn the box around and repeat step 4-5 to make the last side. 
7. Stand the box upright. Roll screening around the box until all sides are covered. Use the thread to tie the screening to the box (put the string through the little holes in the screening). Or, if you're lazy, use clips or tape. You can leave the opening where you cut the screening as a door by using a hair pin as a lock.
8. Cut out another piece of screening and tie one side on to the top as a lid. Seal the other sides using pins so you can open it up and use it as a door.
9. Lift the box up and put the plant inside. 
10. Put the katydids in and you're done!

Immediately after we put the Mexican Bush Katydids in, they started to eat voraciously despite them typically feeding nocturnally. We think that they were near starvation in the indoor tank since the flower and leaf cuttings are so dry and undesirable! They also started basking in the sun, literally lying down (horizontally) to increase the amount of surface area exposed to the light; they must have been extremely sunlight deprived in the indoor tank.

- Brian