Life is Incredible

By Knightly

Cicada

tibicen linnei has large eyes wide apart on the head and usually transparent, well-veined wings. it likes to hide during the day.

from wikipedia:

cicadas are benign to humans and do not bite or sting, but can cause damage to several cultivated crops, shrubs, and trees. many people around the world regularly eat cicadas; the female is prized, as it is meatier. cicadas have been (or are still) eaten in ancient greece, china, malaysia, burma, latin america, and the congo. shells of cicadas are employed in the traditional medicines of china.
the name is a direct derivation of the catin cicada, meaning "buzzer".

male cicadas have loud noisemakers called "timbals" on the sides of the abdominal base. the interior of the male abdomen is substantially hollow to amplify the resonance of the sound. a cicada rapidly vibrates these membranes, and enlarged chambers derived from the tracheae make its body serve as a resonance chamber, greatly amplifying the sound. they modulate their noise by wiggling their abdomens toward and away from the tree that they are on. ours of a summer day.

some cicadas produce sounds up to 120 dB (SPL) "at close range", among the loudest of all insect-produced sounds. conversely, some small species have songs so high in pitch that the noise is inaudible to humans.

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