|
by Kevin Strauss
It never ceases to amaze me how much we use ourselves as a reference when talking about animals and plants. I suppose it is only natural since most educators advocate starting with what a person knows and then connecting that knowledge to something new. But this can get us into some trouble when we don’t remember that we are attributing our ideas to the actions of animals and plants
.
In some guidebooks, authors talk of cicadas as “singing” while what they are really doing is “buzzing”. While people sing for fun or to entertain others, cicadas are eminently practical: they want to find a mate and reproduce.
Rather than rubbing their legs or their wings together the way that crickets and grasshoppers do, cicadas use their abdomen muscles to vibrate drum-like organs on their mostly hollow abdomens. That is what makes the buzzing we associate with the “dog days” of summer as the males buzz to attract the silent females in the trees.
Both nymph (young) and adult cicadas have piercing beaks that they use to pierce tree branches and feed on sugary tree sap. After hatching from eggs, the wingless nymphs live underground, feeds on root sap for between one and three years. While the “17-year cicada” get a lot of attention in the eastern states and the south for their mass emergences every 17 years, our cicadas are the more pedestrian “annual” variety. Annual cicadas are around every year in small numbers, so they don’t create a stir.
One of our more common cicada species in the northland is the dogday harvestfly (Tibicen canicularis). This one-inch-long insect has a squat green and black body and big “bug” eyes. Its clear two-inch-long wings extend well past the end of its body and though it’s almost lobster-like front legs look frightening, they are mostly adapted for holding on to tree back. This insect prefers transition forests with a mix of both deciduous (broadleaf) trees and evergreens. But entomologists suspect that its young feed on the roots of pine trees, since this species disappear when deciduous trees take over a region. The sound of the dogday harvestfly has been compared to the sound of a circular saw cutting through a 2x4 board.
The next time you are outside, listen for the buzz of these creatures and look for the shed skin of these bug-eyed bugs are trees near your home.
The Ely Timberjay |