Here I am again, I find myself searching out and documenting things I find interesting, and again this time an insect. I was performing a service at the house and found this empty shell of a critter attached to the foundation wall of a home. I spend most of my time traveling, meeting with clients, servicing their homes for pests, and almost always seeing unique things along the way.
I Like To document my journey on occasion.
Like today, I documented an exoskeleton molt skin left by you a newly emerged adult cicada.
As you can see, The molt, or skeletal remain, clings fast to whatever surface it decided to hold onto while emerging. It’s rather interesting how steadfast they cling to surfaces. You have to put a little bit of effort into pulling them off.
The molt skins are very lite as far as weight goes, and a little bit prickly at the feet. If you look closely you can see a slit just behind the head where the adult emerged.
I don’t have a picture of the emerging adult so I found this phot on Wikipedia. Man I wish I had the opportunity To capture a photo of an emerging cicada. I’m just never in the right place at the right time for something like that. Whoever took this photo must’ve had a lot of patience!
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The adult cicada would look something like this below. This is a picture I found on Wikipedia, and gives the best representation although the species may not be exactly correct.
The cicadas species that lives in our area can vary, but we do get a lot of the 13 year and 17 year lifecycle species. They spend most of the time under the surface of the earth in their larval form. The adult lays eggs in the cracks and crevices of the tree bark, when those eggs hatch, the larva fall to the earth and burrow into the soil. They make their way approximately 5 to 8 feet deep and feed off of the sap flowing through the root system of the trees. Yeah, they are pretty darn good diggers.
When their time is right and they are ready, they emerge through the soil by burrowing and tunneling back to the surface. They crawl up the trees bark, or in this case the foundation wall, attach themselves then exit through the larval exoskeleton shell. The shell is left behind eventually fall off and decay.
The adult spends several minutes trying its wings before flying off to the trees to find a mate and to lay more eggs. In these next couple of pictures you’ll see this molt skin is attached to tree bark. I did find one as I was walking around the yard. It was a maple tree that this one was attached to.
They are a very interesting, yet scary looking insect that can do no harm to humans. They suck the sap out of trees which may, if in large numbers, lead to tree harm; But they do not sting or bite.
What I think is really cool about the Skeeter is the noise they make, and the fact their head is almost marbled or camouflage like in nature. I forget exactly how they make the noise they do. I know it’s not with their wings, but with muscles at the front of their body which vibrate loudly to attract females.
Well that’s all I have for today. That was an interesting find that I wanted to share with you, although I’ve seen it before I’ve never really thought about documenting it and posting it here on hive. Thanks for reading my post and let me know if you have any questions. I can try and answer them the best I can and also find the answers for you if need be. Although with Google anymore nobody asks questions. They just look crap up. Ha ha.