The banyan trees by the pond are known to be crying out for summer. A familiar childhood song pulls our minds back to the hot summer of childhood. Sitting under a huge yellow oak tree with friends, surrounded by grandmothers selling sour plum soup, each hand has a bowl of white porcelain plum soup, and the crushed ice hits the wall and clangs.
Cicadas chirp
With the sound of cicadas season after season, spring and autumn do not know how many years have passed, suddenly looking back, the cicadas are clinging to it, things are not human. In our memory, cicadas are the most common type of animal in summer, and grandparents will often take us to various tree trunks to find cicadas.
What we didn't know at the time was that the cicada had a very short life, and its breeding method was usually to lay eggs on the trunk of the tree, but the mature individuals were drilled out of the ground. This makes one wonder how it grew.
Characteristics of cicadas
Cicadas, also known as zhi, belong to the insect family Cicada family, have two pairs of wings, a wide and large head, mainly live in temperate regions of the world, according to statistics, the current number of cicadas is more than 2,000 species.
cicada
Cicada eggs are mainly distributed on the branches of large trees, because cicada eggs need a lot of nutrients to hatch, so the eggs of cicadas are very concentrated in a certain area of the trunk, like a grain of rice evenly distributed. By absorbing nutrients from the trunk to maintain the energy needed for self-development.
However, the hatching rate of cicada eggs is extremely low, and only more than 40 out of 400 eggs can be successfully hatched. The first reason for such low hatching rates is the influx of alien species. Since cicadas do not hatch their own eggs, the insect can unscrupulously break in and lay its offspring into the cicada eggs to seize the nutrients absorbed by the cicada eggs.
Cicada eggs
The second reason is due to natural weather and the wanton destruction of some insects that feed on cicada eggs. Therefore, in order to increase the rate of derivation of offspring, cicadas generally place eggs in several different locations.
Why do cicadas come out of the soil
Cicada eggs do not form cicadas immediately after hatching, they go through two other stages, the nymph stage and the following year's cicada generation period. The nymph period is actually a cicada that will form a very small juvenile nymph after the eggs laid in that year will be successfully hatched and blown to the ground.
A mature cicada that has just shed its hull
At this time, the cicada already has the shape of an adult cicada, although it is still small, but it will also dig under the ground to find the survival resources it needs. The following year's cicada spawning period refers to the spawning period in the following year and hatching into cicadas in the following year, and the difference between them is that the time of formation of adult cicadas is different.
The nymphs blown down by the wind will choose a wet land to bury themselves in and begin their own extraordinarily long period of metamorphosis. The average nymph will peel its skin five times in 2-3 years, but in some parts of North America it takes 7-17 years to break through the cocoon and become a butterfly.
Cicada larvae
The main food source of nymphs of cicadas is protein and organic matter in the roots of plants, which have long mouthparts that can obtain fresh juice to maintain their own growth. They are also very smart, choosing to migrate to the underground in the face of extreme cold. But because most plants don't follow up as deeply, winter nymphs are particularly slow to develop.
Many people wonder why cicadas choose the underground as a growing environment, but in fact, they are too weak and have no protection from their relatives. All kinds of predators around them, such as birds, insects, reptiles, etc., will harm them. Moreover, the development time of nymphs is so long, if there is no stable nest protection, wind and rain, hail and snowflakes will make vulnerable them lose their lives.
The golden cicada is dehulled
Secondly, cicadas do not have the ability to regulate body temperature, and unlike some organisms, they can withstand the cold through hair. Cicadas are especially afraid of the cold, so they only crawl out in the hot summer. The underground is the best place to shelter from the cold.
Eventually, at the end of the long period of metamorphosis, He would drill out of the land and climb up on tall trees. Some wonder where the soil in the nest it made goes. In fact, when they settle down, they will make a hole in the ground, and the length of this hole is about 2 to 3 meters, in order to ensure the solidity of the cave.
They will choose to compress the dirt around or under their feet, otherwise if they just make a nest for tofu slag projects, they may not wait for the summer, and they will be crushed by the mud before the first stage of cicadas is completed. They also carry a portion of the dirt out when they become cicadas. That's why we often see a cicada molting in the trees covered in mud.
Nutritious and delicious cicadas
Adult cicadas reproduce during the hot summer months. The male knows to attract the attention of the female by emitting a call from the abdomen, and the two will give birth in a special place after mating.
As mentioned above, cicada eggs need to absorb the nutrients of the branches to hatch, so they will generally choose a branch of the right size, fresh emerald green, which only provides absolute humidity and nutrition for the hatching of cicada eggs. But the life cycle of cicadas is very short, living underground for most of the time, and only 10% of the time can spend the whole summer freely and safely.
After they have completed their reproductive task, male and female cicadas will die naturally as if by convention. It seems that this trip is only to amaze the whole summer.
Fried cicada pupae
Cicadas also have a very beautiful meaning. In the Journey to the West, the Tang monk is called the golden cicada, and the meat of the Tang monk can be eaten to live forever. Therefore, people also think that cicadas can live forever when eaten. Of course, this is just a mythical story handed down by the ancients. However, the fried monkey is really delicious. For some curious humans, this is a fine delicacy, and cicadas contain six times more protein than eggs.
In the street stalls in Guangdong summer, usually three or two groups get together, order a fried monkey, barbecue know, the entrance is crisp and tender wrapped in spices of spicy and fresh fragrance, look up at the sky full of stars, can't help but sigh is another hearty and happy summer ah.
epilogue
The life of a cicada is very short. They need to be silent underground for several years to get a release call for nearly three months. The moment the first cicada sounds, it proves that summer is coming.
The life of a cicada
At that time, ignorance and naivety did not understand such feelings, and it was not until later that more and more knowledge was acquired that the more they understood, how similar people were to cicadas. Years of effort to burn themselves but only for a certain period of time can be brilliant, and even some people are forever silent underground.
We also marvel at the fearless spirit of cicadas, at least for a moment when they sing, they can prove that they have come!