Measuring periodical cicadas' chorus with fiber optic cables

Hung from a common utility pole, a fiber optic cable—the kind bringing high-speed internet to more and more American households—can be turned into a sensor to detect temperature changes, vibrations, and even sound, through ...

Do adult periodical cicadas actually feed on anything?

Every so often, cicadas emerge above ground and blanket the Earth with their exoskeletons while emitting a high-pitched chirp from sunrise to sunset. The periodical cicadas in the genus Magicicada come every 13 or 17 years, ...

Brood X Cicadas left their mark on soils

Long after the deafening cacophony of the Brood X cicadas ended in mid-June, their ecological legacy was still playing out underground, according to a new study of cicada burrow-riddled ground being presented at the AGU Fall ...

page 1 from 7

Cicada

A cicada ( /sɪˈkeɪdə/ or /sɪˈkɑːdə/) is an insect of the order Hemiptera, suborder Auchenorrhyncha (which was formerly included in the now invalid order Homoptera), in the superfamily Cicadoidea, with large eyes wide apart on the head and usually transparent, well-veined wings. There are about 2,500 species of cicada around the world, and many of them remain unclassified. Cicadas live in temperate to tropical climates where they are among the most widely recognized of all insects, mainly due to their large size and unique sound. Cicadas are often colloquially called locusts, although they are unrelated to true locusts, which are a kind of grasshopper. Cicadas are related to leafhoppers and spittlebugs.

Cicadas are benign to humans under normal circumstances and do not bite or sting in a true sense, but may mistake a person's arm or other part of their body for a tree or plant limb and attempt to feed. Cicadas have a long proboscis under their head which they insert into plant stems in order to feed on sap. It can be painful if they attempt to pierce a person's skin with it, but it is unlikely to cause other harm. It is unlikely to be a defensive reaction and is a rare occurrence. It usually only happens when they are allowed to rest on a person's body for an extended amount of time.

Cicadas can cause damage to several cultivated crops, shrubs, and trees, mainly in the form of scarring left on tree branches while the females lay their eggs deep in branches. Many people around the world regularly eat cicadas. They are known to have been eaten in Ancient Greece as well as China, Malaysia, Burma, Latin America, and the Congo.[citation needed] Female cicadas are prized for being meatier.[citation needed] Shells of cicadas are employed in the traditional medicines of China.

This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA