Jul 11, 2011

Japanese Cicada: Tanna Japonensis

There are certain sounds that typify a season. In Japan the sound of the cicada is one of those sounds. Every year around the end of June the cicadas come out of the ground to have a 5 day party before they die. Cicada's spend the majority of their lives underground and use these burrows to come out from under the tree they were living under. Just by chance, I was able to catch one in the middle of molting its skin. After this a cicada molt's its skin, it will fly up into a nearby tree, to make a great deal of noise, and make more cicadas.

Okinawa, Japan

1 comment:

Patrick Gibson said...

Dude, those are crazy-gross looking. I remember these in Wisconsin when I was growing up (perhaps a different variety, of course). I ran over one with my bike—the biggest bug splatter I've ever seen.