CICADAS

DESCRIPTION. any of a family (Cicadidae) of large, fly like homopteran insects with transparent wings: the male makes a loud, shrill sound by vibrating a special organ on its under surface

After 17 years of dormancy underground, the best known of the 1,500 species of cicada emerges for five weeks of lively activity in the sunlight, and then dies. With the possible exception of the termite queen, this cicada may be the longest living insect.

The nymphs as the cicada's young are called drop from the tree twigs where they have hatched from eggs. They burrow into the ground, attach themselves to rootlets, and remain there motionless, sucking the tree sap, for 17 years. Then by instinct they leave their burrows to climb the trunk of a tree. Their skins split open, and mature cicadas emerge.

For their few weeks of aboveground life the cicadas make the air resound with their shrill ear-piercing song. Only the males can make this noise, which led an ancient Greek to say, "Happy are the cicadas' lives, for they have voiceless wives." The sound varies with different species. The noise making apparatus consists of little drum like plates at the base of the abdomen that are vibrated rapidly by strong muscles.

The female cicadas do immense damage to forests and orchards by cutting row upon row of egg pockets in twigs, causing twigs and leaves to fall off. One female lays from 200 to 600 eggs.

More than 100 species are found in America north of Mexico. The 17-year cicada (which in the South matures in 13 years) lives only in the United States. The commonest cicada is the black and green harvest fly, which matures in two years. The 17-year cicada is often incorrectly called the 17-year locust. True locusts are grasshoppers.

The cicada, usually greenish with red and black markings, is 2 inches (5 centimetres) or more in length, with four wings, a wide head, a three-jointed beak, an abdomen of six segments, prominent compound eyes, and three ocelli, or simple eyes. Cicadas are in the genera Magicicada and Tibicen.