Cicada facts

Cicadas spend most of their lives as nymphs underground. This may be as long as 17 years. Adult cicadas most live 2 to three weeks but some live only for a day or two or less.

It is easy to tell the sex of cicada adults. Females have blade-like ovipositors visible on the bottom surface of the abdomen, and the males do not. Males possess a pair of sound-producing, or "singing", organs located on the sides of the first abdominal segment.

The male cicada makes the loudest sound in the insect world; they have their own built-in sound system.

The sound made by the male cicada can carry for up to a mile.

The sound is made by vibrating the ribbed plates in a pair of amplifying cavities at the base of the abdomen.

Each sound organ consists of a large plate-like structure, the operculum, which covers a cavity containing a white or yellowish membrane and an oval, ribbed, drum-like structure called a timbal. Timbals are vibrated by strong muscles to produce the cicada song.

Each species has its own distinctive call and only attracts females of its own kind even though rather similar species may co-exist.

A female cicada lays her eggs in the twigs of trees and shrubs. She places the eggs in small holes that she makes with a sawlike organ near the tip of her abdomen.

The female cicada can lay four hundred to six hundred eggs.

After the adults have mated both will die.

Different species can be heard at different times of the day. While some prefer mating during the day, others prefer the evening hours.

Cicadas have large compound eyes situated one on each side of the head They also have three very small glistening simple eyes (ocelli) on the top of the head.

Cicadas feed by piercing the surface of plants with their mouth stylets. They then suck up the sap through a tube formed by the concave surfaces of two of the stylets.