Tuesday, September 17, 2013

Buggy Serenade

 


When you take a walk during this time of year, whether at the Nature Preserve, or just around the block near your home, your ears may be overwhelmed with the buzzing song of insects. Insects are usually unnoticed by most people, except for a passing comment perhaps. "Boy, those bugs sure are loud today! I wonder what's making all that noise."  Because they are cold blooded, insects need hot days to warm up their instruments. You won't hear them on a cool morning. But if you listen, you will notice them around midday. By late afternoon or early evening, more insects will have joined the chorus. They are singing love songs, and looking for a mate!
 
 
These sounds are made by different insects, depending on the time of day you hear the singing. During the day, the loud buzzing is usually made by a cicada. There are several species, including an annual cicada and the dreaded 17-year species. A cicada is 1 to 2 inches long, with a blunt head and clear wings. Similar to true bugs, it has a mouth part for sucking. Like a drinking straw with a sharp end, the cicada's mouth part can pierce a woody plant and suck up sap. The female cicada has an ovipositor folded under her abdomen. She uses it to slice into the tip of a branch and deposit eggs inside. After the eggs hatch, the young cicadas (called nymphs) drop to the ground and use special front legs to tunnel into the soil. Underground, they feed on root sap and grow in dark burrows for many years.
 
 
Each cicada crawls out of the ground and up onto a tree or other woody plant. Then the cicada nymph inflates itself with air, moisture, and blood, splitting open its exoskeleton. Eventually, the grown-up cicada emerges and leaves its exoskeleton on the bark. Males begin to call for a mate, during the day, and females listen for their courting call. After mating and laying eggs, the adults die. Some people call cicadas locusts, but they are not. The confusion happens because locusts, which are a kind of large grasshopper, sometimes show up in tremendous swarms. However, locust swarms are very destructive. They devour entire crops, while cicadas feed only on plant juices and do minor damage to trees.
 
 
In the evening, other insects sing the buggy serenade. Katydids are some of my favorites, as they argue, "Katy did!" and "Katy didn't!"  As a child I always wondered what Katy was supposed to have done! Katydids look like large green grasshoppers with super-long antennae. Indeed, another name for these insects is long-horned grasshoppers.
 
 
Like Katydids, crickets rub a sharp ridge on one wing against a rough part of the other. As it rubs, its wings vibrate. The vibration amplifies the sound. This singing style, known as stridulation, sounds like buzzes, chips, chirps, or clicks. Crickets. Crickets hold their wings flat on the back. Their long, slender antennae extend beyond the body. The female has a single long tube, called an ovipositor, for laying her eggs in soil or plants.
 
This is the time of year to enjoy the natural sounds of nature. Turn off you iPod and turn on your ears!
 
Naturally yours,
~denapple