Completely Buggy

No, I'm not talking about the Stampeaz site building operation driving me a bit off the beam (although, the description is apt for that, too). I'm talking about the rare opportunity I had to watch a cicada that had just emerged from its nymph stage to grow into its adult self. 

I had often found the nymph husks of these creatures attached to a tree or the side of a building when I was a child and marveled at how they usually stayed stuck. This one had apparently come unglued during the process of breaking out of the shell and had to cope with emerging on the porch right by the door of the house. Check out those tiny, wadded up wings. 

In this second picture, it had pretty fully emerged from the nymph stage and done a face plant into the concrete stoop, since the nymph shell toppled over with the effort and weight of the escape. You can also see how its wings are just beginning to unfurl.

It found purchase on the door frame and latched on, as its wings took advantage of a little gravitational pull to drop even further. 

The wings were the most amazing color of green that fairly glowed in the sunlight. 

In this picture, the cicada has worked its way around to the front of the door frame and its wings have started to angle in along its sides, rather than flat and open as in the previous picture and they're starting to become less opaque. 

It kept climbing higher and the green began to recede from the ends of its wings, as they became more transparent. Of course, all of this took a number of hours to happen and we finally had to go make some dinner. 

The following morning, this foolish creature had found its way under the outdoor table, where I was barely able to save it from being eaten by Baloo, who thought it would make a crunchy treat. We did get to see that the green that remained in its wings had become more olive than neon lime and the wings were completely transparent (except for the veining, of course). 

As I was getting ready to put the little fellow in a relatively safe spot, I noticed the amazing nose on this guy. It reminds me of early car grilles. (Yes, you know me - I had to look up cicada anatomy to find out that it was called a nose!) Nowhere is terribly safe for a cicada, since almost every creature likes to eat them, from birds and fish to rodents, reptiles and spiders. Even some organisms without mouths snack on cicadas - like fungus. Other insects eat them, too. More about that in an upcoming post! 

People also find culinary uses for these high protein insects. I remember one year, when the seven, thirteen and seventeen year cicada cycles all peaked at the same time (the sound was deafening!), a local ice cream parlor made cicada ice cream and the confection was an instant sell-out. No, I didn't try any - it was already gone. However, I still think I would prefer butter pecan...