CICADA: Cicada are insects with large eyes wide apart on the head and usually transparent, well-veined wings. There are about 2,500 species of cicada around the globe, and many remain unclassified. Cicadas live in temperate to tropical climates where they are among the most widely recognized of all insects, mainly due to their large size and remarkable acoustic talents. Around 220 cicada species have been identified in Australia. (Wikipedia)
So, there are 220 cicada in Australia and I saw my first one tonight. Unfortunately it scared me to death. I was taking the clothes off the line and as I took down a shirt there is was on the shirt behind. I wasn't sure what it was so I had Kev come look. He knew exactly what it was and got the camera to take a picture.
Funny story about cicadas. After we had been here about a month one night there was this really loud sound. We were unsure what it was - in fact we thought it was a car alarm or something. After about 45 minutes it stopped. The next night around the same time again we heard the loud noise. After a few nights of this Kev remembered what it was (he saw and heard them in Japan) and the mystery was solved. So, every night we hear the cicada song but I haven't seen one yet - until the heart stopping one on the clothes.
[You have to understand, I have never really been afraid of bugs, spiders, and snakes. However, come to Australia where the top 10 deadliest animals live and you too would probably be scared to find a deadly spider on your clothes.]
2 comments:
We have a big collection of those cicadas around here - green ones and black ones.
Wishing you a beautiful happy birthday - hope they're spoiling you Stacy!
There was a section about cicadas on the Planet Earth series in the seasonal forests dvd. The ones in Korea come out every year, but the ones that come out have been growing underground for 7 years. The species in Planet Earth only come out once in seventeen years, so it won't happen again for a long time, but they come out in the billions. They provide food for everything there, then the ones that aren't eaten produce, and then they all die providing the forest with some really good fertilization.
I don't miss them one bit, I remember how loud they were in Korea, if you were by a bunch of trees you couldn't even hear the person next to you talking.
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