Monday, April 8, 2013

Cicada

I heard on the radio recently that the east coast is about to be blessed with an abundance of Cicada "by the shovelful".  One brood there is about to reach the point in it's 17-year life cycle where it gets to take wing, and apparently get eaten by everything.  Although I regretfully won't get to see that cornucopia, I was please to get to see our own variety coming to the surface last week.  Although not a shovelful, a very fascinating little critter even solo.

Cicada Nymph Skin

"Fresh" Cicada
Wings More Developed

While we didn't get to see it break out of it's nymph phase case, we saw it right after, as the wings took shape.  It was cruising up the moss to higher on the tree where it broke out.  NPR currently has a great timelapse photo series of one breaking out.

Does anyone have any thoughts on the exact species this is?

Additional Information
http://www.npr.org/blogs/krulwich/2013/04/02/176012068/sing-fly-mate-die-here-come-the-cicadas
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cicada


2 comments:

  1. I found one at my front door in Marinwood. I didn't know we had cicadas in Marin. This is as close to identification I could find. This site is a good source for bug ID. http://bugguide.net/node/view/403411/bgimage

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