Life habits of cicadas

Cicada, also known as cicada, is black and old, and its larval stage is called cicada monkey, reptile monkey, cicada monkey, cicada turtle or cicada turtle. It is a large insect in Homoptera, about 1500 species. It is 2 ~ 5 cm (0.8 ~ 2 inches) long, with two pairs of membranous wings, prominent compound eyes and 3 monocular eyes. There are two species of Cicadellidae, commonly known as Cicadellidae, which are only distributed in southern Australia.

cicada

The male cicada has an eardrum near the base of the abdomen, which can make a loud sound when vibrating the membrane. Most North American cicadas make rhythmic ticking or purring, but some kinds of cicadas have beautiful sounds. Some species can be easily distinguished from each other in singing, behavior and morphology. The male cicada of each species makes three different songs: collective songs, which are regulated by the daily weather changes and the songs of other male cicadas; Courtship before mating; The harsh sound made when caught or afraid to fly away.

Cicada eggs are usually laid in woody tissues. Once hatched, the nymph burrows into the ground and sucks juice from the roots of perennial plants. Generally, after molting for 5 times, it takes several years to mature. When the number of female insects is large, the oviposition behavior will damage the young trees.

A newborn adult cicada.

Cicadas are mostly distributed in tropical areas, inhabiting deserts, grasslands and forests. In addition to the three-volt cicada that appears every summer, there are also periodic cicadas. The most famous periodic cicadas are 17 cicada and 13 cicada, which occur at regular intervals in a certain area.

Some species are easy to distinguish in singing, behavior and morphology. The male cicadas of each species make three different songs: collective songs, which are regulated by daily weather changes and the songs of other male cicadas; Courtship before mating; The harsh sound made when caught or afraid to fly away.

The larval stage of cicada is called cicada monkey, cicada monkey or cicada turtle. The largest cicada is 4 ~ 4.8 cm long and its wings are dark brown at the base. It is harmful for trees to crow loudly in summer, and it is harmful for trees to suck tree juice with acupuncture mouthparts. Larvae inhabit the soil to suck root juice. The shell of cicada can be used as medicine.

Cicada is a large herbivorous insect, usually about four or five centimeters long. Their needle-like hollow mouths can pierce trees and suck sap. There are also different kinds of cicadas with similar shapes and different colors. Cicada has three less sensitive eye spots between its eyes and a simple supporting tubule on its wings. These are the primitive characteristics of ancient insect populations.

The high note in the cicada family is a cicada called "double drummer". There are large ring-shaped vocal organs on both sides of its body, and a disk that can be opened and closed inside and outside is in the middle of its body. The opening and closing speed of the disc is very fast, which is the reason for shaking cicada. This sound lacks change, but it is much louder than the call of the jungle canary.

Cicadas spend the first two or three years of their lives underground, maybe longer. In the meantime, it sucks liquid from the roots. Then one day, I broke out of the ground and found a tree to climb with my instinct to survive. After several years of slow growth, cicada pupa climbed out of the ground as an energy storage body. Its front paws for digging holes can also be used for climbing.

The specific process of cicada molting

When black cracks appear on the back of cicada pupa, the molting process begins. Molting is controlled by hormones. The front legs of the cicada pupa are hooked, so that when the adult comes out of the empty shell, it can be firmly hung on the tree. It is very important that the cicada pupa must face the tree vertically. This is for the normal development of adult wings, otherwise the wings will be deformed. Cicada, based on the pupa shell, slowly releases itself, just like climbing out of a pair of armor. The whole process takes about an hour.

When the cicada's upper body is free, it spreads its wings upside down. At this stage, cicadas' wings are very soft, and they spread them through body fluids. The body fluid tube spreads its wings by the pressure of liquid. When the liquid is pumped back into the cicada, the spread wings have become hard. If the cicada is disturbed in the process of spreading its wings, it will be disabled for life and may not be able to fly at all.

In Shawan, Xinjiang, cicadas were unearthed in a different way from what everyone knows. For example, in the Central Plains, cicada pupae crawl out of the ground at dusk or just at night, find a place to attach small trees or other plants, and then start molting. In Shawan, cicadas come out of the ground at the hottest time at noon and look for small shrubs nearby to climb up. When it first came out of the ground, it was light yellow and very small. At noon, the sun is very strong, and the color of cicada turns black on the bush. When it is completely dark, it can spread its wings and fly away. So there are two differences, one is time, which is commonly known as dusk or night, while it is noon in Xinjiang; Another point is that cicadas in Xinjiang have no shells when they are unearthed.

The benefits of smoking

Whenever cicadas are thirsty and hungry, they always use their hard mouthparts-a slender hard tube, stick their mouths into the trunk to suck the juice all day, and suck a lot of nutrients and water into their bodies to prolong their lives.

Edit this paragraph

The growth and transformation of cicada

Cicada larvae live in the soil, suck the juice from the roots of plants, weaken trees, make branches die, and affect the growth of trees. Grasshopper larvae live in the soil all their lives. When it is about to emerge, drill out of the ground at dusk and night, climb to the tree, and then grab the bark to shed its skin and emerge. At the end of June, larvae began to emerge into adults, and the longest life span was about 60 ~ 70 days. Female adults began to lay eggs in late July, and the peak of laying eggs was in early and middle August. Most of the eggs were laid on branches with a thickness of 4 ~ 5 mm. When laying eggs, female adults first punctured the bark with an ovipositor, inserted the ovipositor into the branches to form claw-like egg holes, and then laid eggs in xylem. Each spawning hole has 6 ~ 8 eggs. There are more than 90 cicada eggs on a branch. Trunks and dead branches are common in late autumn in areas where this kind of insect occurs seriously. The laid eggs will hatch in the middle of June of the following year. After hatching, the larvae fall from the branches to the ground and then drill into the soil. Larvae live in the soil for several years and molt 5 times. Whenever spring is warm, the larvae move upward and suck the juice from the roots of plants. When autumn and winter come, they go deep into the soil to avoid the cold. Larvae's body is mostly white or yellow, very soft, and the forehead is obviously enlarged. The mature larvae are hard, yellow-brown, and have developed wing buds. There is an molting line from the top of the head to the center of the chest and back, which is the cracking line of adults when they emerge.

Edit this paragraph

Cicada's interest

In ancient China, cicadas symbolized resurrection and immortality. This symbolic meaning comes from its life cycle: at first, larvae, then cicada pupae on the ground, and finally flying insects. The image of cicada larvae first appeared on Shang bronzes in 2000 BC. From the late Zhou Dynasty to the funeral of the Han Dynasty, people always put a jade cicada in the mouth of the deceased for shelter and eternal life. Cicada is considered as a symbol of purity because it feeds on dew.

Since ancient times, people have been most interested in the singing of cicadas. It is praised by poets and poets, and expresses noble feelings with the sound of chanting cicadas. What's more, some people keep cicadas in small and exquisite cages and put them in their rooms to listen to their voices to win people's hearts. Indeed, from the spring when flowers are in full bloom to the autumn when green leaves are withered, cicadas have been tirelessly singing a brisk cicada song for people without any Chinese and western musical instruments, which adds a deep affection to nature. No wonder people call it "insect musician" and "singer of nature".

People are intoxicated by the cicada's song, but forget its nature. Do you know that whenever cicadas fall on the branches and sing loudly, they pierce the bark with slender mouthparts and suck the sap of trees, all kinds of thirsty ants, flies, beetles and so on. Will hear the sound to suck the tree juice, cicadas will fly to another tree, open another "spring eye" to continue to provide them with drinks, so if a tree. It can be seen that cicadas are big pests of trees.

The humming cicada is a male cicada, and its vocal organ is located at the base of the abdomen, like a drum, which is covered with an eardrum. The eardrum vibrates and makes a sound. Because the vocal cord muscles can expand and contract about 65,438+0,000 times per second, and the gap between the cover plate and the eardrum can play a role of * * *, its singing is particularly loud. And you can sing in different tones in turn. The female cicada is a "dumb cicada" because her musical instrument structure is incomplete and she can't make a sound.

The male cicada keeps singing every day, not to lure the female cicada to mate. The female cicada can't hear the male cicada at all. After mating and fertilization, the female cicada pricks a row of small holes in the branches with a sword-shaped ovipositor and lays her eggs in the small holes. A few weeks later, both male and female cicadas died.

Why do male cicadas bark? It turns out that the two small disks on the cicada's stomach are called sound masks, and there is a transparent membrane inside the sound masks, called valves. It's actually the sound of the valve. People use a megaphone to amplify the sound, and the sound shield is equivalent to the cicada's megaphone contracting back and forth to amplify the sound, and it will make a sound of "knowing-knowing-knowing-knowing-knowing", which will be called a male cicada, so there is no sound shield and valve on the female cicada's stomach.

The larvae hatch from the eggs and stay on the branches. Autumn wind blows them to the ground. As soon as they reach the ground, they immediately find soft soil to drill down to the edge of the roots and suck the sap of the roots for a living. At least two or three years, more than ten years, from larva to adult, you have to shed your skin five times, four of which are underground, and the last time you climb out of the soil and climb into a tree to shed the dry yellowish shell (this is the shell of cicada). It can be seen that cicada is an insect that can't see the light. Although they live for a long time, they rarely live in the sun and spend almost all their lives in the dark underground. I'm sorry.

On a cool summer night, cicadas are chirping in the trees. If you attack it at this time, there will often be a liquid similar to sewage overflowing from the leaves, which is cicada urine. Cicada's food is mainly the sap of trees. Cicada's mouth is like a hard tube. It sticks its mouth into the trunk, sucks the juice all day long, and sucks a lot of nutrients and water into the body to prolong its life. When it encounters an attack, it quickly discharges the waste liquid stored in the body to reduce the weight of take-off and play a role in self-defense. Cicada's excrement is different from other insects. Its excrement is stored in the rectal sac, and it can be excreted at any time in an emergency.

Cicada has two pairs of membranous wings with very hard veins. When cicadas rest, their wings always cover their backs. Cicada rarely flies freely, and only flies from tree to tree when it is foraging or disturbed. Interestingly, cicadas can suck juice through straws and sing with musical instruments at the same time. Eating and singing do not interfere with each other. The chirping of cicadas can predict the weather. If the cicada chirps loudly in the treetops early, it will tell people that it is very hot today.