Parents (or heck, adults who want a fun project on their desk while working from home) this is something fun and safe you can do with your iPhone.
Dog day cicada freshly emerged from its exoskeleton. The wings and body will get darker as it dries out.
I got a bit obsessed with insects this past summer. Not traveling and moving to a home with a backyard gave me the opportunity to really study and observe things I’ve always wondered about, like cicadas. The older I get, the more I groove on cicadas, they are a sense memory of childhood as summer was marked by their sounds. Where I grew up in Indiana and where I lived we primarily had scissor-grinder cicadas, Linnea’s cicada and some of the periodic species like 13 year cicada. But in Minnesota we mostly we have the dog day cicada—although last summer for the first time ever I did hear a scissor-grinder cicada singing in my front yard. My new neighbors already think I’m a little eccentric but thought it over the top when I leapt up with my phone to record the sound of a new Minnesota cicada. They asked, “Wait what? You can ID bug calls too?”
Cicada nymph found on a neighborhood bike rid
This summer I found a number of dog day cicadas emerging around my new place. Some were found gardening, others in the grass. Goodspeed was working in our garden, digging out some rocks and brought one over, “Look at these crazy insects I keep finding!” I knew immediately they were cicada nymphs and told him to put them back, that they were after tree roots, not any of the perennials.” I later read that dog day cicadas have a preference for pine trees. The neighbor has a large white pine and I’m sure its shallow root system makes it way to the backyard and that’s what the nymphs were after.
True to their name, when the hottest part of summer hit, the cicadas began to sing and I found their shells on hostas, the front yard maple tree, in the grass or the driveway. I’ve had an aversion to the nymphs ever since I was a kid. I think it’s because as kids we loved stepping on empty cicada shells for the satisfying crunch sound. One day I watched a girl crunch one shell with her bare foot and then squish a freshly emerged cicada with her other bare foot. I still can hear her wails of disgust and rage ringing in my ears 40 years later. Also, they look gross and like they can bite you. But at this stage of their life, they are finished eating and don’t really bite. If you pick them up and let them crawl on you, you will feel the grip of their feet—which makes sense. They are looking for something to grip while they go through the vulnerable process of emerging from their shell.
I picked up a few and used the time lapse feature on my iPhone to get this video.
You can make one of these too!
1. Find a cicada freshly emerged from the ground, this can happen at any time of day. When you find one, you have 15 to 30 minutes before the process gets going.
2. Find a good rough stick for the nymph to crawl on and get comfortable. Place the stick in a vase or glass that will keep the stick steady.
3. Find a way to aim your smartphone at it for awhile. Thanks to the pandemic and working from home all the time, I have a selfie stick that also works as a tripod and has a ring light. This is perfect for holding the phone steady and giving enough light to really see the process well. Pro tip, if you tap and hold your finger on your iPhone screen it will not only lock the focus, but the exposure as well. And then I hit start on the time lapse button and an hour later I have a green cicada and a really cool video.
4. Now, if you are worried about the cicada flying all over your house when it comes out—no need. As long as it’s light green, it’s not going to fly. It can crawl. Once the cicada is out for about five minutes, I either set the stick with the cicada on it outside the front door, or let it crawl onto the trunk of the maple tree to let it finish and then be on its way.
I love how time lapse on smart phones gives the opportunity to observe nature and share it with the world. If you choose to share this on Instagram, people will think you’re the next Attenborough!
Here’s my selfie stick/ring light set up. I got this because it makes you look awake at video meetings and is perfect for making time lapse videos of insects. I think I got this on Amazon for about $18, it even has a grip that will hold most models of smartphones.
Cicada I found on my car tire in the summer of 2019. Their wings are quite beautiful when they first emerge.
Cicadas are incredible creatures: a tremendous source of food for other insects, birds and mammals (even humans), you can ID them by song and there’s a rich variety in their song. The adults lay eggs on tree branches and the young hatch and fall to the ground, burrowing in to feed on the sap of tree roots. Different species stay underground for different periods. I’ve read the dog day cicadas take three years to develop into a winged adult—and then live about a week in that form. Some species can be underground for over a decade, think the 13 year cicada or the 17 year cicada.
It also works for me as a metaphor. The above cicada on my car tire was found the morning after I’d made a giant life altering decision. I had things to do and was irritated this was on my back tire, but at the same time I was struck by the vibrant hue of the green wings, the beauty sucked me in. I sat watching it and contemplating the life of a cicada. Here was something that was burrowed under the soil for many years, in the dark, perfectly content to suck the sap of a root of a tree, living in their self construct burrow. Over time, they get coated in anal fluid. Then one day, that’s not the life they need and they have to come up through the soil, to open air, the unknown and then go through what looks like a very uncomfortable process and live what life they have left to live. And they do it in a completely new way. There’s can be a lot to learn from a cicada.