This cicada was busy chirping away (or more technically "clicking") just outside my front door, but paused long enough to grab hold of the twig I offered and pose for a few quick portraits.The cicada mating song can be quite distinctive, and - if you live in certain parts of the country - quite overwhelming.
Cicadas can live to anywhere around 17 years, much of which is spent underground. When the emerge, they tend to do so in large groups to avoid predation.
No, they don't gang up to tackle the birds or other hungry predators in the neighborhood.
Instead the birds will have their fill (much like an unsupervised kid in an ice-cream shop), but so many cicadas have emerged that the predators are quickly satisfied and disinterested (i.e. too much Rocky Road gives little Billy a tummy ache, and Orange Sherbet lives to see another day).
When they are ready to sing and attract their mates, the males will expand and contract muscles around their hollow abdomens - a process that produces a resonant clicking sound, each distinctive to a specific species of cicada (of which there are estimated to be 2,500).
This poor guy wasn't having much luck finding his mate today, and I blame his song.Maybe he should give us all a break and take a lesson from another popular cicada (or Secada, if you will) who knows how to really belt out a love song.
On second thought, I'll take the chirping.
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