Tag Archives: cicadas

Summer Soundtrack

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The eastern gray treefrog is one of many performers in nightly summer concerts.

The eastern gray treefrog is one of many performers at nightly summer concerts.

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One of my favorite things about summer is the free outdoor concerts. I’m not talking about local bands that occasionally perform from the park gazebo even though they can be a pleasant accompaniment to my evening dog walk. No, nothing says summer like the insect-amphibian jam sessions that take place almost every evening.
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I’ve moved quite a lot in my life and have been delighted to learn that each place I’ve lived long enough to grow accustomed to—six U.S. states and a Scandinavian country—has a timbre and cadence all its own, distinctive to that specific habitat in a certain continent on a singular planet in an expanding universe. It’s the soundtrack of home, wherever home may be at that particular time in field cricket 2 by Jimmy Smith, CCLone’s life.
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The musicians start warming up as the light begins to fade. They’ve been playing the same basic tune since I was a child so I immediately recognize the overture. By 7:00-7:30p the instruments are tuned and ready to swing.
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Field crickets (Gryllus spp.) establish the beat with their forewings, kind of like a finger-snap that varies from cool to hot depending on the atmosphere.
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Common true katydids (Pterophylla camellifolia) shift the accent…
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common meadow katydid by Rachid H, CCL… and the common meadow katydids (Orchelimum vulgare, not as common as the name implies) chime in with a bit of lawn-sprinkler syncopation.

 [you might need to boost the volume a bit on this one]

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Before long, the dog-day cicadas (Tibicen canicularis) are stealing the show.
dog-day cicada by Roger Engberg, CCL
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As the evening progresses, though, the cicadas and other insects cede the stage to the second act—the frogs and toads… possibly because these headliners have been known to devour the opening act!
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The band is made up primarily of horns and percussion. This isn’t jazz—there’s not much in the way of improvisation and the musicians don’t really take turns letting one another shine during a solo. It can be difficult to identify the featured players, in part because the cast keeps changing; there are fair-weather performers, some northern cricket frog by Andy Reago and Chrissy McClarren, CCLhave stormy temperament, and others don’t like to travel far from their favorite watering hole. Still, there are some easily recognized voices.
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Northern cricket frogs (Acris crepitant) step in to set the pace abandoned by their namesake insect. I’ve seen their call described as pebbles bouncing against one another but to me it’s a metal cabana—chain wrapped around a wood cylinder and shaken, not stirred.
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The American toad (Anaxyrus americanus) is a minimalist; not much complexity but the sustain on that single trilling note is impressive.
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green frog by Matt Reinbold, CCLThe green frog (Lithobates clamitans), on the other hand, is a true traditionalist—no electric bass for this fellow, or even an upright acoustic. Listen carefully and you’ll hear his homage to a single string and washtub.
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Tiny boreal chorus frogs (Pseudacris maculata) play plastic comb call-and-response…
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eastern gray treefrog by USFWSmidwest, CCL… and the gray treefrogs (Hyla versicolor) are in charge of the upper register. These little guys can blow, plus how about that vibrato!
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When the gang’s all here and lettin’ it rip the result is more cacophony than symphony—not everyone’s ideal night music but a lullaby to my ears.
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© 2015 Next-Door Nature—no reprints without written permission from the author (I’d love for you to share my work  but please ask). Thanks to these photographers for making their work available through a Creative Commons license (CCL) or Project Guttenberg License (PGL) (from top to bottom):  USFWSmidwest (eastern gray treefrog); Jimmy Smith (field cricket); Lisa Brown (common true katydid); Rachid H (common meadow katydid); Roger Engberg (dog-day cicada); Andy Reago & Chrissy McClarren (northern cricket frog); AllieKF (American toad); Matt Reinbold (green frog); J. N. Stuart (boreal chorus frog); USFWSmidwest (eastern gray treefrog). 

Goodness knows

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Caption (Photo: OakleyOriginals 2008 Creative Commons license)

For this intrepid youngster, a cicada is good for a smile on a hot August day.

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Kindergarteners swarmed around the khaki-clad naturalist, squealing with excitement, shouting out questions and jockeying for a better view. The adult volunteers on this field trip were a tougher audience.

“I’m glad they’re having fun but I don’t see why anyone should care about some bug,” one 30-something mom confided to another, adding, “What good is it, anyway?”

I overheard this question while visiting a nearby urban nature center but it’s just one variation on a theme I’ve heard throughout my life and career… a theme that opens the door to fascinating explorations of the ways human beings assign instrumental and intrinsic value to creatures great and small.  And I do so love engaging philosophical conversations.

My first, unfiltered instinct, however, is to hurl the question back at them like a boomerang: “What good are YOU?”

I catch myself—usually—before the words escape, gently reminding my outraged inner eco-warrior that choosing honey over vinegar improves our chances of winning both the battle and the war.

To successfully implement a honey-offensive, it helps to have an arsenal of sweet scientific research think-bombs at the ready. This is an arms race and, naturally, I’m always on the lookout for a chance to acquire the hottest new technology so I can blast misconceptions and prejudices to smithereens.

Imagine, if you will, my greedy glee when, last week, I stumbled on an amazing new trove of ammunition from a most unlikely source.

Theo's friend by Phlora 2007 CCLIs there a creature  more likely to inspire the value question than a cicada? (In those parts of the world where insects are not a significant source of protein in the human diet, that is.) How’s this for a life cycle? Hatch from your egg, drop out of your natal tree, dig in and spend 1—17 years (depending on your species) hanging out underground sipping root juice and metamorphosing through various awkward stages of puberty. Finally emerge from the soil, climb out of your skin one last time. Rest until your shiny new wings harden then hook up with a member of the opposite sex and get busy… or not. Depends on how long you can avoid being eaten by a squirrel, a bird, a dog or cat, a fish… and rest assured, you will be eaten at some point during those 1—6 weeks of halcyon summer days preceding your demise.  Unless you are transformed into a zombie slave by a cicada killer wasp (Exeirus lateritius) in need of a surrogate mother for its offspring, in which case you’ll still be eaten but it will take longer for you to die.

cicada killing wasp by Steve Krichten 2003 CCLOne could argue that if the nihilists are searching for a mascot, they need look no further than one of the 2,500   Cicadidae clan member species. Still, until the pointlessness of existence becomes a dominant meme in human culture even a potential poster-child gig is unlikely to satisfy a determined anthropocentrist who insists on asking, “What good is it? You know… for people?”

Turns out, Australia’s clanger cicada (Psaltoda claripennis, aka clear wing cicada) may end up doing quite a lot of good for people. Unintentionally, of course; insects aren’t known for their benevolence. But according to a recently published Biophysical Journal article cicadas may be an accidental ally in our battle against bacteria.

clanger cicada by Melanie Cook 2004 CCLChemical warfare is common in the insect world. Humans readily adopt the same strategy against both microscopic and macroscopic opponents (although, in most circles it’s considered verboten in human-versus-human conflicts). Funny thing about man-made poisons—they tend to deliver short-term success followed by long-term environmental headaches, especially when used against enemies with high reproduction rates. Insects and bacteria, for example. As a former defense secretary once said, though, you go to war with the army you have. We have chemicals. Lots of chemicals.

How refreshing, then, that according to a team of researchers from Australia and Spain, evolution has armed the clanger cicada with a vaguely medieval yet elegantly simple physical defense against infection.

Spikes.

Enough to make a punk rocker proud (and Vlad the Impaler SO  jealous). You see, clanger wings are covered in an array of sharply pointed nanopillars. When a hapless bacterium settles on this surface, it stretches and sags into the crevices between the spikes, like Jell-O on a bed of nails, until the cell membranes are shredded and the microbe is incapable of reproducing.

Scientists have already begun to investigate the potential of synthetic cicada-inspired materials. Think of it—in the not-too-distant future countertops, doorknobs, bus straps and subway poles, sinks and commodes, railings, surgical instruments and even money could be covered with a passive bacteria-killing surface that makes the ubiquitous hand-sanitizers obsolete!

Now, how could an invention like that possibly do a young mother any good?

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© 2013 Next-Door Nature—no reprints without written permission from the author (I’d love for you to share my work. Just ask first.). Thanks to these photographers for making their work available through a Creative Commons license: OakleyOriginals (smiling face, 2008); Pholra (kitten, 2007); Steven Krichten (cicada killing wasp, 2003); Melanie Cook (clapper cicada, 2004)