Cicadas Overnite Early Aug 2021

On August 2 morning, I spotted 5 items—a live but nearly immobile cicada and four exuviae (exoskeletons). The cicada and an exuviae (Specimens A and B) were on one porch column. Another exuviae (Specimen C) was on the second column, and two (Specimens D and E) were on the third column. I don't believe the cicada had emerged from any of these exuviae, but maybe alighted in the area from elsewhere. (Nearly all of my cicada sightings have been empty-shell only.)

From past observations, cicadas abandoned their shells shortly after they molted and air-dried off. I observed one emerging cicada and periodically recorded and pic'd it during a few hours. One last time that I went outside, the bug departed, leaving its shell stuck to the step. "Molting Cicada Visitor at My Doorstep" (video, article) details that event.

Note the similarity of the 2017 bug's backside mask look to the more recent Specimen A.

This year is apparently a banner year for cicadas, often referred to as "brood X" cicadas, the X being Roman numeral for ten (10). Much of the eastern part of US got their cicadas in May. My latecomers and others in the area seemed to arrive in July and early part of August. The following resources provide good background for this year's bounty:

• "These dogs, birds, and squirrels are stuffing their faces with Brood X cicadas" (May 21, 2021)
• "The cicadas have arrived in some states: Can they bite or sting? Are they dangerous to pets? What you need to know." (May 20, 2021)
• "What You Need to Know about Brood X Cicadas in 2021" (March 22, 2021)
  I wondered how long an emerging cicada might hang around before taking off. This nature.com article states, "Cicadas are at their most vulnerable right after shedding their shells. It takes a newly emerged cicada around 30 minutes to harden its new carapace and pump its wings full of blood."

Speaking of emerging cicada, "Periodical Cicada transformation timelapse" shows an excellent timelapse video of an cicada emerging. The digital clock display of more than 4 hrs running time compresses into a 2-minute video.

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More articles about cicadas

Wasp and Cicada Together

Earlier this month, a wasp and cicada caught our eyes. I might have whipped out my measuring stick and laid it near the duo, but decided to not disturb the wasp. As it turns out, several resources claim that the wasp is likely busy and not interested in a nearby human. From Cicada Mania's "10 Facts about Cicada Killer Wasps"

They are so focused on cicadas or other Cicada Killer Wasps, that they could care less about you. Sure, if you step on one, squeeze one in your hand, or otherwise harass the insect, it might sting you. Unlike other wasps, it will not go out of its way to harm you. Play it safe, do not go near these wasps, …

The last few months have been interesting for encountering cicadas and related items—exuviae (discarded exoskeleton), cicada wasp (humongous insect), and a molting cicada visitor on my doorstep—all separate events. This incident was different—both wasp and cicada in the same scene. In looking closer at the pictures and doing Google lookups, a real oddity was the size of the pictured wasp compared to the cicada. Resources such as Cicada Mania and BugGuide.Net describe the wasps as large.

• From Cicada Mania's "10 Facts about Cicada Killer Wasps"
  "If you haven’t seen a Cicada Killer Wasp, they are large black and pale yellow wasps, and are often found carrying a cicada".
• From BugGuide.Net's "Species Sphecius speciosus - Eastern Cicada Killer"
  "30-40 mm, one of the largest North American wasps … A very large wasp with distinctive pattern and behavior."
• From Texas A&M's Agrilife site for "The Texas-sized cicada killer"
  "Cicada killer wasps are easy to spot due to their large size; they are typically 1-1/2 to two inches in length."

If you compare the pictures with numerous online images or videos of wasps flying with their prey, my wasp is an absolute peewee. As I didn't spend much time with the duo, and didn't shoot a video, I'm inferring a story. The cicada's back faces the sky. For the wasp to use the cicada as food source for its larva, it must be able to insert the egg into the cicada. In the three pix, the wasp looks waaaay too small to be able to turn the cicada onto its back.

Walking in the same area the next day, did not see either insect. Dang! Missed opportunity.

While researching sites and videos to better identify the wasp and cicada. I noted a couple of coincidences:

• A suspected cicada wasp that I'd taken a picture of the previous month resembles large cicada wasps in several images and videos, particularly "Cicada Killer Wasp (Craboninae, Sphecius speciosus)".
  
  
• The cicada's back markings for the September 13 strongly resembles the markings for the cicada in my article "Cicada Wasp N Cicada a Month Apart".
  
  

Additional video resources show wasps with cicadas. Those wasps are maybe half the size of the cicadas (unlike peewee wasp), but strong enough to haul their prey. Some of the videos also include narration about the wasps' actions on the hapless cicadas.

• "Cicada Killing Wasps"
  Good educational narration. Includes short-duration movement of wasp hauling cicada at about 50-second mark.
• "Wild Moments: Cicada Killers Usually Ignore Humans"
  At about the 55-seconc mark, the wasp starts dragging cicada. The human handling the wasp seems gutsy to me. Good narration.
• "The work of a cicada killer"
  The handler is gutsier than I'd be, as he lets the wasp haul the cicada all over him.
• "'Cicada Killer' wasp stinging (cicada)"
  Another gusty human handling wasp with cicada.
• "Cicada killer gets a lift"
  Another video that shows someone not squeamish about a wasp with cicada landing on her.
• "Cicada Killer Wasp with Cicada filmed at 210 fps"
  Excellent capture of motion of wasp in flight with cicada.
• "Cicada killer wasp stinging a cicada (laying eggs)"
  The video title says it all.
• "Huge Cicada Killer Wasp Struggles to Bring Home Her prey"
  The video title says it all.
• "Cicada killer wasp carries prey to nest"
  The video title says it all.

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Related (new, as of 9/27/2019): Cicada Wasp, Pac-Mannish Deco

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For more articles about cicadas, enter "cicada" in the search box at the upper left of this window. Or find and click "cicada" link at Partial Index of Keywords section (just below Popular Posts section).

Molting Cicada Visitor at My Doorstep

Last month, on my way back from a morning walk around 8 AM, I spied a cicada partially emergent from its exoskeleton at my front door. It looked to be trapped and unable to have exited. Took pix, natch. Checked later, and found it had moved. In the course of the day (about 4 1/2 hours), the two of us took series of pix and videos. (View the finished YouTube video.)

Around mid-day, the other pictaker took a last shot of the cicada, fully extended, still drying out. Shortly thereafter, we saw it had departed, leaving the exuviae that had a more slender exit cavity than I'd seen of other vacated shells. The video is time-sequenced for cropped stills and clips. Most amazing is capturing stages of emergence and the stunning mask-like look on its back.

Note: Somehow, I missed the shelly cicada on my way out for my walk (7-ish, maybe). I either didn't spot it, or it approached the doorstep during my walk. View "Cicada Molting - Nature Time Lapse (Cicala fa la muta)" to see a couple of shelly cicadas undulating and splitting the shell backs, starting the emerging process, then completing the molting process.

Bugguide.net and Cicada Mania
Bugguide.net has been my most frequent go-to site for bugs. For this article about cicadas, Cicada Mania's "The most interesting 17 year cicada facts" bubbled to the surface as a compelling site to visit.
More worthy Cicada Mania sites:

• "Cicadas by Genus and Species"
• FAQ site

Some images from Bugguide.net's "Subfamily Cicadinae" page resemble my visitor cicada. The genus might be neotibicen ("Genus Neotibicen - Annual or Dogday Cicadas") or megatibicen ("Genus Megatibicen").
From "Genus Megatibicen"

Identification
Most members of the Megatibicen are >2.5 inches long (incl. wings). Megatibicen are often "stockier in appearance" & characteristically more pruinose (white powdery wax) than are most members of the Genus Neotibicen.

Pee Ew
One of the clips in my YouTube video shows the emergent cicada spraying a fluid. Did it pee? Sure looked like it did! Found some info and a video, although these cicadas were already free of their shells.

At Massachusetts Cicadas site (slogan: Dedicated to the Study of the Cicadas of Massachusetts and New England), "Cicada Molting/Eclosing Process" shows a timeline a timeline of the cicada's emergence. For ick factor, view the closeup of cicada pee. Cicada Mania's "Do cicadas pee?" mentions cicadas after they molt, not during. The site includes YouTube video "Cicadas - Drinking & Peeing (01Apr2012a)" of branch with emerged cicadas on it spraying away. (The spray resembles the emission as from my molting cicada visitor.)

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More articles about cicadas

Cicada Wasp N Cicada a Month Apart

The last few weeks while taking daily walks and pix, we've spotted some unusual buggy items that warranted closeups. (I’m getting better about carrying and whipping out a measuring stick so I can scale the objects.) My pixstrip with composites shows three related objects—cicada wasp (dead), cicada exoskeleton (aka "exuvia"), and cicada (dead), approximately scaled with my trusty 6” rule.

Some LinkedIn connections IDed the first bug as a cicada wasp (from June 12). Cicada wasp? It’s a wasp that zeros in on cicadas as they emerge from their hibernation. Note that the underside of the image pair shows the stinger. I created a composite with pastes of measuring stick segments and the camera pouch. I was amazed at the over-two-inch wingspan. According to "The Texas-sized cicada killer", the females have the stingers and are docile, and males don't have stingers but are aggressive.

The second image section (July 11) shows a cicada exuvia that hung vertically from a curb. You can see a hollow inside where the insect emerged from. For the image, I used masking tape to affix the measuring stick near the body length to get a sense of scale.

8/10/17, WRT to exuvia/exuviae—from Steve Schwartzman of Portraits of Wildflowers

from what I can tell, entomologists normally use the plural exuviae. The singular would indeed be exuvia, but entomologists seem not to use that form. While exuviae is formally a plural, it carries something of a singular force as a set of sloughed-off parts.
https://www.ahdictionary.com/word/search.html?q=exuviae
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/us/exuviae

The third image section (July 12) shows the topside and bottom side of a cicada. I had help from additional LinkedIn connections in IDing it. Two commenters provided the same wikipedia link (endorsement!), which conveniently includes an audio link near the picture. In the last few weeks I sure have heard a lot of the same sounds. View the following YouTube videos for closeup motions and sounds.

• “Singing Cicada”
• “Cicada makes sound !”
• “Buzzing Cicada”

View videos of cicadas starting out as muddy-looking bugs. Watch them detach from their exoskeletons and emerge as elegant, transparent-winged cicadas—

• “Amazing! Arkansas Cicada Emerging From It's Shell- Time Lapse”
• “Cicada Molting”
• "Cicada Molting - Nature Time Lapse (Cicala fa la muta)"

The following three videos show closeups of cicada wasps and their distinctive yellow markings. Two of the videos show wasps hauling their much larger prey.

• “Cicada Killer Wasp Prepares her Burrow”, cicada sights, sounds, and lots of thorough narration
• “Cicada Killer with Cicada”, wasp with burrow and lots of egg depositing
• “Cicada killer wasp stinging a cicada (laying eggs)”, no wasp with burrow, but lots of egg depositing

Past Articles about Cicadas

Last year, I had written a couple of articles about cicadas, but was more focused on the exoskeletons than the wasp predator or winged insects. Both exoskeletons in those images had wound up on the same porch column at different times. Incidentally, one set of images includes wasps, but they seem to be maybe curious paper wasps buzzing at the empty shell.

• “Closeup of Molted Cicada Exoskeleton (and More Info)”
• “New Molted Cicada Exoskeleton with Wasps”

Lots of thanks to LinkedIn people who helped ID my pictures in my feed and also commented! If you're a LinkedIn member, you can visit the following topics and images:

• https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6285175365035974656 (cicada wasp)
• https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6291332825807413248 (cicada)

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For more articles about cicadas, enter "cicada" in the search box at the upper left of this window. Or find and click "cicada" link at Partial Index of Keywords section (just below Popular Posts section).

New Molted Cicada Exoskeleton with Wasps

 

Last month, I published "Closeup of Molted Cicada Exoskeleton (and More Info)". I had taken the accompanying pic of that lifeless shell on July 25. A few days ago, another cicada exuviae showed up on the same porch column, about a foot higher. Oh, boy! Another opportunity for another pic or more! Spotted more subjects than I expected, and got a bit more practice with my Fuji JX665.

I took the pix August 21, 22, and 23. With some of the images, I stood on a stepladder to get a better view of shell interior. Some pix are better focused than others. The pixstrip shows seven images. Click the following links to view very large images, which I saved as jpgs to reduce file sizes.

1. Wasp perched on the shell (taken 8/21, 8:09 AM)
2. Two wasps near the shell (taken 8/21, 8:11 AM)
3. One wasp near the shell (taken 8/21, 8:14 AM)
4. Wasp perched on the shell (taken 8/21, 8:19 AM)
5. Shell (taken 8/21, 12:23 PM)
6. Shell (taken 8/22, 1:40 PM)
7. Shell (taken 8/23, 12:10 PM)

Part of my autofocus problem might have been cloudiness on those days, as we'd been getting rain several days that week. (The Fuji doesn't have manual focus, and the autofocus feature is ok but not great.) The porch overhang that obscured some ambient light might have also helped make it too dark. Otherwise, the camera would deliver a cheery-sounding autofocus double beep, signaling me to fire away.

Another issue I had was the camera focusing on greenery several feet away instead of my favored subject(s). A couple of times, I tried taping some cereal box cardboard as background, but breeziness kept flapping it, maybe affecting the camera's optimum capability. (Yes! Blame the camera! LOL!)

I think the main reason I didn't get optimal images is from inexperience. Learning for future shots:

• Keeping subjects inside the rectangular marks, especially with trying to capture shell with nearby wasp(s) or getting too near the shell as I did with the last two shells
• Avoid zooming in if I use the closeup mode (flower)
• Increasing lighting so autofocus works better

I mulled over including the last two images because of less than optimal focus. However, details looking inside the shells are unusual to see. Better luck next time for me! And may the next cicada not shimmy so high up the porch column before planting itself for its skeletal strip!

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For more articles about cicadas, enter "cicada" in the search box at the upper left of this window. Or find and click "cicada" link at Partial Index of Keywords section (just below Popular Posts section).

Closeup of Molted Cicada Exoskeleton (and More Info)

Earlier this week, I spotted a sizable empty shell of a bug, maybe a beetle, I thought. It was about an inch tall, stuck to a corner of a porch column, seemingly hugging it, about three feet above the porch. It looked like all the innards might have been cleanly sucked out, maybe consumed by parasitic larvae, leaving only exoskeleton and maybe other chitin.

For a larger, unreduced image, click here.

Not being an entomologist or gardener who might know about bugs, I wondered how to get information about the shell's former occupant and how it departed. A Google image search yielded seemingly countless, overwhelming results.

I decided to turn to LinkedIn connections, and posted a pic and update, hoping to get someone to identify the item. I was in luck! Two people, John Rothgeb, and Steven Schwartzman, replied with great leadoff info.

From John, a declaration and web link: "Looks like cicadas or even a Giant cicada - http://texasento.net/Cicada.htm". The website images and first .wav file sent me off to Googling more info.

From Steve, a strongly specific term and also two links to blog articles he had written about cicadas himself:

The thing in your picture appears to be the exuviae of a cicada. That word is a Latin plural that entomologists use for the exoskeleton that an insect casts off as it grows from one stage into the next.

Here are a couple of instances from my blog:
https://portraitsofwildflowers.wordpress.com/2014/07/22/exuviae-2/
https://portraitsofwildflowers.wordpress.com/2011/07/18/exuviae/

A third LinkedIn connection declared the shell to be cicada. (Happily, LinkedIn networking can be fruitful for topics besides work, careers, and occupations. (My LinkedIn home page shows more number of views for the exoskeleton picture and inquiry than any other topic I've announced in recent memory.)

Besides increasing my curiosity about the animal, the terminology I was encountering sent me hunting down definitions and pronunciations for chitin and exuviae. Interestingly, the first "c" in cicada, according to both m-w.com and dictionary.com, is pronounced as an "s". I've heard people pronounce it as only a "ch" sound. And I myself pronounce it as "ch". BTW, those two dictionaries also provide long/short vowel pronunciation options of "i", and the first "a".

I have listed some links about cicadas, many of them YouTube videos that show cicadas molting.

• Molting
  • "Cicada molting": Note the dorsal part of the shell splitting apart, similar to the result that my picture shows.
  • "Cicada molting in :45 seconds": This hyperspeed video compressed an hour's process and includes music that seems to undulate with the cicada's molting rhythm.
  • "Cicada Molting": According to the video owner, the molting process took over 2 hours; the video itself was 2:59. The video includes lots of info, catchy music to go wit molting rhythm.
• Some nichy non-molting items:
  • "Cicada Myths": They live much of their lives underground, but they weren't asleep or dormant before they emerge.
  • "Top Cool Facts about the Cicada Bug. Cicadas Swarm! TheCoolFactShow Ep. 1": They're not locusts. They don't bite or sting.
  • "Cicadas -- Tiny Tymbals, Big Sound": They can be extremely loud.
• More expansive info about cicadas:
  • The Periodical Cicada (Brood XXIII) in southern Illinois - Wolfpath Wildlife Ep. 11. This video owner provides information about different life cycle stages and gender differences.
  • "17 Year Cicadas Hatching Timelapse": The first 25 seconds to almost the two minute mark shows the process from body expansion to breaking the dorsal shell part to entirely detaching from the exoskeleton.
  • "The Return of the Cicadas": This documentary is stunning for displaying swarms of cicadas undergoing life cycles, some none-too-successfully. Near the end of the video, "nymphs", which look like miniature cicadas, hatch from eggs.

Anyway, the bottom line about the clinging bug shell on the porch column: It's a castoff exoskeleton after a cicada molts and flies away, not shell remains after parasitic larva(e) dined on the insect. Coincidentally enough, a wasp that captures a cockroach for its larva's future food supply uses similar methodology as a wasp that targets cicada.

From "10 Facts about Cicada Killer Wasps"

1. The adult female wasp will paralyze the cicada with her venomous sting.
2. The wasp will carry the cicada to a burrow, where it will place the cicada.
3. The wasp will lay an egg under the left or right second leg of the cicada.
4. The egg hatches, and the larvae begins to eat the cicada, while taking care to keep it alive.
5. Once the larvae [sic] has had its fill, it spins a cocoon, in which it will change into an adult wasp.

Such behavior looks similar to that of jewel-wasp-on-cockroach, in comparing information in "How a Wasp Turns Cockroaches into Zombies" of Scientific American.

venom compounds work fast, paralyzing the cockroach …
leads her victim to its final resting place …
Once inside her burrow, she attaches one egg to the cockroach's leg, then seals her offspring and the roach in.…
wasp larva hatches from its egg, its meal is ready to eat. And soon enough after that, a new wasp emerges from the burrow, leaving the roach carcass behind.

Note: The SA article states that the larva hatches and emerges as a wasp, omitting the details of how the larva becomes a wasp. The m-w.com site explains that the stage between larva and wasp is pupa, "usually enclosed in a cocoon or protective covering".

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For more articles about cicadas, enter "cicada" in the search box at the upper left of this window. Or find and click "cicada" link at Partial Index of Keywords section (just below Popular Posts section).