Cicada shell

This is one of these (or these) after it's emerged from the ground.  

The cicadas began singing a week or two ago - a welcome sound I enjoy and look forward to.  Today I spied over two dozen cicada casings aound the beech tree in my garden.  most are pointing (heading) skyward and all have splits at the same place.  They look kind of grotesque in an utterly fascinating kind of a way!  How I wish I'd stumbled across this sight as they were crawling up the tree trunk.

Read more about their interesting life cycles here