Summer with the chirping of cicadas is the real summer! Cicadas are familiar insects to everyone, but it is rare to see young cicadas.
We all know that the larvae of butterflies are caterpillars, the larvae of flies are maggots, the larvae of bees are the fat white fleshworms in the hive, and the larvae of mosquitoes are sandworms in the water, then the larvae of cicadas are What do larvae look like?
It seems that in people's minds, cicadas always appear as adults, . Is this how they are born?
Of course not. Most of the insects in the world are completely metamorphosed or incompletely metamorphosed creatures . This does not mean that their souls are metamorphosed, but that their bodies are metamorphosed.
Golden cicada sheds its shell
The larvae of insects look different from the adults , and they need to pupate to become adults. This growth form is called complete metamorphosis .
Cicada is an incomplete metamorphosis insect . It does not form a pupa, but sheds its shell again and again.
The reason why we can't see its larvae is because they live in the ground.
When the cicadas shed their shells and become adults, it is the time when they break out of the ground .
But why is it so difficult for us to find larvae holes on the ground?
Where did the soil they dug out go?
Cicada on the tree
The growth of cicada
Cicada is the general name of HemipteraCicidae. There are more than 2,000 species of cicada in the world. They are distributed in most warm and humid places in the world. Some cicadas can also grow in arid desert life .
The cicada has sharp mouthparts on its mouth, which can pierce the bark of the tree to suck the sap of the tree. It can also cut open the bark and lay its eggs under the bark.
Cicadas will initially lay their eggs on trees. They are hidden under the bark of the tree. The egg-laying places are located at tree ends, branches and other places. They are almost invisible to the naked eye.
Only when the ends of branches of fruit trees peeled off by it become necrotic , the eggs can be found by the fruit farmers themselves.
Cicadas lay eggs on trees
Since they have not hatched at this time, many people do not recognize them as cicada eggs and think they are from other insects.
Even if the eggs hatch, people don't recognize them because cicadas are incomplete metamorphosis insects. They need to constantly shed their shells to become close to adults. When they are young, they don't look like cicadas at all.
In biology, the juvenile stage of incomplete metamorphosis insects is called nymphs . Cicada nymphs are usually off-white or earthy yellow . They are very small when they hatch out. They live by sucking the sap from tree trunks and have certain effects on plants. Harm.
The Life of a Cicada
As the nymphs grow up, the ends of the narrow branches can no longer accommodate them. At this time, they will fall from the tree under the influence of wind or rain, burrow into the soil.
Nymphs are still not very large , so it is difficult to see the traces of their digging into the soil.
Nymphs spend a long time in the soil, and different species of cicadas spend different periods of time in the soil.
The longest one is North American seventeen-year cicada , whose nymphs will develop in the soil for 7 years , followed by thirteen-year cicada , whose nymphs last 13 years.
Cicadas will molt to 5 times before reaching adulthood. The last molt is called " golden cicada sheds " because the cicada's wings will appear at this time.
North American seventeen-year cicada
The cicada body is moist after molting. It needs to be dried for more than an hour before it can fly after the body is dry.
This time is the most dangerous time for cicadas, because they can neither escape nor resist.
The cicada's last molt is very strict. If is interfered with midway, then they will have defects throughout their lives. Either will not fly , or will not call .
After the cicada has molted, it needs to join the breeding army immediately, otherwise will miss this season , and then there will be no chance again.
Cicada is very strange. It stays in the nymph stage for a long time, but the adult stage is very short, only 114 to 60 days.
In other words, the cicada must complete mating in the summer. If it fails, its previous years in the land will be in vain.
Male cicadas attract females through their chirping
Behind the chirping of cicadas
The chirping of cicadas in summer is both annoying and full of life. The chirping of cicadas is essentially the courtship ritual of cicadas.
The cicadas that make cicada calls are all male cicadas , and they do not scream, but vibrate the tympanic membrane of their abdomen through , causing it to resonate with the gap between the cover plate .
And the eardrums of female cicadas are underdeveloped and cannot resonate, so female cicadas are "dumb" and cannot call.
Although cannot resonate with , female cicada can feel the resonance with .
Summer cicadas
Near the second section of their abdomen , there is a sensor that specifically receives sound.
There is a very interesting point here, that is, the acceptance of sound by male and female cicadas is different.
The male cannot hear his own cicada at all, so he has no idea how noisy he is.
But the female cicada can feel it, and it will distinguish the various situations of the male cicada based on the different cicada calls , and judge whether it is suitable to be a partner.
The cicadas are chirping, and summer is coming.
For humans, the decibel level of the cicadas is exactly between the noise levels , so we think the cicadas are very noisy.
However, considering that this was someone I was looking for, and it was only in summer, I gritted my teeth and endured it.
So why do cicadas go to such great lengths to lay their eggs in trees, run into the soil, and go through such a long nymph stage ?
This is because the complete metamorphosis of insects is so powerful. As an incomplete metamorphosis, cicadas must find a way that suits them to survive.
Cicada's nymph breaks the ground
Cicada's survival strategy
Cicadas belong to the order Hemiptera, and they are not the four major orders of insects, which is what people often call the four major families of insects.
Don't look at the Hemiptera, which has about 38,000 species , but in front of the four major families Coleoptera , Lepidoptera , Hymenoptera , Diptera , it can only be considered a small dwarf.
The four major orders of insects are all complete metamorphosis , and they will go through the pupa stage.
The so-called pupation is a very magical process. It is equivalent to breaking the larvae and reassembling them into . Different parts of the larvae will develop into various parts of the adult worm.
Emerging from a cocoon and becoming a butterfly
The advantage of this is that grows quickly and the larvae can quickly turn into adults; the disadvantage is that of the four major insect families generally do not live long .
If you count from birth, cicadas can be said to be relatively long-lived insects. Like the seventeen-year cicada and the thirteen-year cicada, they can live for more than ten years in one breath.
Members of the four major insect families generally live for one or two years . Mosquitoes, for example, live in months.
The cicada's growth rate is really too slow . If it has been living in a tree , it will be easily preyed on by birds.
You must know that the cicada's reproductive cycle is really too long. As long as there is an accident in the middle, all the hard work of the cicada's life will be ruined.
The cicada in the painting
So the cicada adopted a very stubborn method, that is, to move underground to live.
And the time when cicadas are unearthed should be avoided as much as possible when other animals are raising their chicks.
For example, cicadas usually break out of the ground at the end of and complete their final shedding, and then reproduce. In summer, there are generally few animals brooding , so the density of predators is not particularly high.
Although cicada nymphs are off-white or earthy yellow, when most cicadas complete their last molt, their bodies are green.
Because they have already climbed the tree at this time, they need to change to another protective color.
Cicadas are not the only insect whose larvae live beneath the soil. The infamous locust also adopts this survival strategy, but locusts do not stay in the soil for that long.
Birds Prey on Cicadas
The Life of Cicadas
Cicadas are pests to some extent. If there are too many cicadas on a tree, then the tree may be sucked out of nutrition.
Cicada nymphs will also live on branches for a period of time at the beginning. During this period, they also suck sap, and they suck in groups, which will cause the branches to dry up.
Sometimes in summer, when standing under a tree, you will feel " light raindrops" falling from it. However, the weather at this time is clearly bright and sunny, where do the "raindrops" come from?
In fact, these "little raindrops" are water secreted by cicadas.
Don't get me wrong, this is not the cicada's urine, but the cicada is adjusting its own temperature .
"Little raindrops" fall under the water in summer
Don't talk about the temperature in summer, even insects will feel hot.
The cicada expels its own water through , allowing it to evaporate and take away body heat. This should be regarded as the cicada's "sweat".
Cicada is a kind of pest . Why do poets and scholars write poems and articles about it from ancient times to the present?
The reason is that cicada's edible and medicinal value is particularly high.
Handicrafts - Golden Cicada
In ancient times, the last shell under the cicada was called Golden Cicada Shell , which was a traditional Chinese medicine.
The cicada nymphs taste delicious . They are coated in flour and deep-fried. The children next door were so greedy that they cried!
Nowadays, cicada breeding has also begun. There are several types of cicadas with relatively short reproductive cycles and , which have gradually formed an artificial breeding model.
For example, the golden cicadas currently on the market are artificially bred.
Cicada’s Dishes
People still focus on protecting cicadas such as the seventeen-year cicada or the thirteen-year cicada, which have a too long reproductive cycle.
