Cicada Orni
in Athens
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cicada's story
Cicada Wiki
There are just under 2000 species of cicada around the world.
Their sudden appearance in the summer months, mysterious feeding habits and striking song have attracted attention to cicadas for thousands of years. Most children in Australia have climbed backyard trees to collect these noisy insects and kept them in an old shoe box lined with leaves.
They don't bite, they aren't regarded as a pest and they're harmless to humans. But there's a lot more to our shrill summertime visitors than meets the eye.
There are three distinct stages in the life cycle of a cicada
Nymph stage: The eggs stay in the slits in the bark for many weeks and then hatch into a miniature cicada called a nymph.
Because they are so small they can fall down to the ground without injuring themselves and seek shelter underneath the leaf litter.
They search for cracks and burrow down between 10cm and 40cm using their large forelegs to shovel soil around. It's here, underground, that cicadas spend most of their life. The cicada nymph feeds by piercing small tree roots with its needle-like rostrum and sucking up sap. When the sap runs out, it tunnels around to find a new root to feed from. While living and feeding underground they continue growing, periodically shedding their skin, until they reach maturity.
Egg stage: After mating, the female will lay several hundred eggs. She makes a little slit in the bark of the branch as she walks along and pushes the eggs down through her long tail. She deposits 12 or so into each slit and then moves on a few millimetres to make another slit for more eggs, and so on, until all the eggs have been laid.
Adult stage: When the nymph finally reaches full size it digs its way to the surface, climbs on to a tree trunk and sheds its skin for the last time leaving a telltale brown shell. The life of the adult, in contrast to that of the nymph, is very short.
When they emerge from the ground they live for varying periods of time, from a few days to a couple of months, depending on the species. The majority live for around two to four weeks during which time they mate and lay eggs and the cycle starts again.
Where you can find them​
Cicadas occur in almost every part of Australia, from the hot and wet tropical north to the snowfields of Tasmania, from beach sand dunes to the driest desert. The plants they inhabit range from the tallest trees to suburban lawns, coastal mangroves to desert shrubs and include both native and exotic plant species.
However, cicadas are primarily tropical insects and most Australian species are found in the northern half of the continent. The great variety of vegetation types and local climatic variation found in north-eastern Queensland makes this the richest region for species. The area of greatest species diversity is within 100km of Cairns.
The time at which cicadas appear throughout the summer season varies from species to species, but each will tend to emerge in the same month across the different states. Green grocers tend to come out early in November and die out by the end of December. Black princes and floury bakers start off at the end of December and go right through to February or March, while red eyes can still be found in the middle of February.
