Mysterious visitor

grasshopper (katydid) rosemary
Originally uploaded by triviaqueen

We went out looking at open houses today -- saw three: one I liked, one Kiddo liked and one we all agree would take a lot of work but it is priced accordingly as a "fixer-upper."

Later, while eating dinner, we noticed a little grasshopper-type insect on some plastic cutlery. I took some photos then took it outside, letting it crawl on to my rosemary plant.

After dinner I started trying to figure out what kind of insect it was and eventually found a post on What's That Bug that convinced me it was a Drumming Katydid (Meconema thalassinum). It seems that these bugs were introduced to the Pacific Northwest very recently -- in the past 5 years. Up to then, they were commonly found on the Eastern seaboard and in Europe.

After identifying it, I went to check on him (it is the male of the species) and he was still hiding in the rosemary. One mystery does remain: how did he come to be in our dining room? My guess is that he hitchhiked on us from one of the yards we were poking around earlier.