These weird and wonderful looking insects are GIANT FLORIDA KATYDIDS, a type of bush cricket native to Florida and Cuba.  They closely resemble leaves, as you can see from these pictures, so that they can camouflage themselves in the bushes and trees in which they live.

You can see from this close-up image below just how amazingly leaf-like their wings are down to the tiniest details of their pattern!

Like many species of insects they regularly clean their legs and antennae using their mouthparts, here you can see an adult female and a smaller nymph cleaning their back legs in this way:

Here is an adult male cleaning one of his antennae!

I personally believe that they have one of the most interesting faces in the insect world, I hope you agree!

The picture below is of an adult pair, the male being the smaller of the two individuals (on the lower left of the picture).  If adult katydids are disturbed or feel threatened they can jump very well using their powerful back legs and then fly/glide to flee from danger, a very impressive sight indeed considering their large size!!

When you look at them directly from above you realise just how unusual their wing shape is, being a very thin structure when viewed in this way compared to either side!

The eggs (ova) of giant Florida katydids are truly amazing looking things and my females regularly attach them to the side of their mesh enclosure!  In this cluster alone there are about 125 ova!

When you look at them up really close you can see that they are exquisitely beautiful, with each individual egg or ovum looking more like a shield than an egg!

My first ever babies of this species (known as nymphs) hatched in September 2011 and I was fortunate to be able to photograph one in the process of emerging from its egg.  I have since had absolutely loads more nymphs hatch which has been brilliant!

As newly hatched nymphs they are extremely cute as you can see here!  They are almost transparent and mainly a mixture of lilac, yellow and blue/green!

As the nymphs develop they begin to look more like miniature versions of the adults and they are incredibly fast growing!  These nymphs are only just a little over 3 weeks old and they look so different from their newly hatched colours already!

The individual below is about 5 weeks old and although not yet fully grown it is a considerable size already.   Apart from their size difference the only other real difference between nymphs at this stage and the adults is that they don't yet have their wings, which develop in the final few weeks of their life cycle following a couple more moults. 

You can see the significant difference in size between a newly hatched nymph and a 7-week old sibling nymph here, they really are a remarkably fast growing species!

Whilst the newly-hatched nymph might look tiny when compared with its 7-week old sibling this is nothing to how small it looks compared to its mum, below!  To think that within about 10-12 weeks this tiny nymph is going to be as big as its parents is truly an amazing thing!

My first ever baby katydid matured at the end of November 2011, a mere 73 days (so just over ten weeks) after hatching!  Here he is, a very beautiful adult male! 

It is an absolute privilege to be able to watch these remarkable and beautiful insects grow from such tiny beginnings, I'm sure you can see why!