Cicadas & Katydids
On Friday evening, when our Sunday school class was at the pavilion, we had an interesting discussion about the very loud sounds coming from the treetops.
Some thought the buzzy, raspy sound was coming from Cicadas, others thought it was Katydids. Most of us weren’t sure. Along with that, one of the women said she just learned that there is an insect called a Cicada Killer.
I never heard of a Cicada Killer, and I am so used to the sound (lived here forty years) and assumed the daytime and nighttime sounds were coming from the same insect – Cicada.
I love learning new things, so went into a full-fledged investigation on Saturday morning.
I am used to seeing shells left behind by molting Cicada, because they can be found on most of our trees this time of year.
On occasion I see a Cicada, but we usually just hear them!
Katydid (photo from Internet) http://buzz.ifas.ufl.edu/index.htm
I had no idea what a Katydid looked like, and was pleased to discover this photo, and interested to learn that this is most likely what is making the sound in our treetops each night. My research told me that Cicada call in the daytime and Katydid call at night. I have most likely seen Katydids and thought they were grasshoppers.
With that settled, I moved on to learn about Cicada Killers…
Male Cicada Killer (left) and Female Cicada Killer (right) – photo from Internet
The Cicada Killer is a large wasp. They paralyze a female Cicada with a sting, drag it to a prepared hole in the ground, bury it, deposit an egg, then cover them. The Cicada serves as food for the Cicada Killer baby.
This process also controls the Cicada population.
We had seen some holes in the ground on Friday evening, and thought they may have been dug by the Cicada Killers. So on Saturday morning, I went on a “dig” with shovel in hand.
The holes near the pavilion were in hard, dry ground, and produced only dirt, so I moved toward my sister’s house, where her daughter Chelsey, and grandchildren Travis and Ashley noticed me and came running, asking what I was doing.
They asked if they could help and got their own shovels. Ashley (purple top) wasn’t sure if hunting wasps was something she wanted to do, but when I assured her that we were looking for something that was dead and in the ground, she slowly followed us.
She surprised me when she started gathering Cicada shells. Before long we needed to stop by our house for a baggie!
We never did find a Cicada Killer, and because we found a Cicada (below) in one of the holes, I concluded that the holes in our woods were probably from Cicada emerging from the ground.
I don’t remember ever seeing a Cicada that was still in its shell. This one was probably surprised to be rudely dug up out of the ground – but as soon as I placed it on a tree, it began a determined climb around the trunk.
I was afraid it was going to crawl too high in the tree (and wanted to see if I could photograph it emerging), so put a piece of broken branch in front of it.
It climbed on the stick and continued trying to find the top of wherever it was. I thought this silhouette was interesting.
When it did not begin emerging within half an hour, I decided to put some bark and branches in a tub and bring it to the patio where I could keep an eye on it.
The children had gone home, because the process was too slow for them, but quickly returned when I called them an hour later to tell them it was starting to come out of the shell!
The emergence is also very slow, and it was cute to hear the children cheering for it every time it wiggled its way a bit farther out of the shell! “Come on buddy, you can do it. You can do it!”
No Cicada ever had a better set of cheerleaders!
Finally, about an hour later it was free of its shell. Since we had to go away for supper, I moved the piece of bark back to the tree stump.
It was gone when we got home, so I assume it changed from the wimpy, wet creature that emerged, into a pretty insect like the one I photographed the day before.
God has created the most interesting creatures!
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