The annual cicadas are emerging!
It’s fun to look for empty shells (exuvia) left behind on plants and tree trunks. As some of the most common species of cicadas here around Birmingham (morning, lyric, dog day, scissor grinder, and dusk-singing) emerge, the buzzing sounds and variety of songs become the loudest and most rhythmic tones in the Alabama summer soundtrack (look for our reel from August 2021 in stories).
Our annual cicadas (these are the species we see every year, not the 13 and 17-year periodicals) emerge after spending two to five years living underground in their nymph forms. Once they burrow out of their tunnels, they climb up vegetation or other structures, shed their exoskeletons, pump hemolymph (insect blood) into their shriveled wings, and morph into flying adults. Male cicadas sing using their tymbals (sound-producing structures on either side of the abdomen under the wings). They sing, and buzz to call a mate. After mating, females will cut slits into twigs with her ovipositor and lay clusters of eggs. Eggs hatch, the small nymphs drop to the ground, burrow into the soil, begin to feed on the roots of trees, and the life cycle repeats. Adult cicadas die in about three to four weeks after emergence.
