Cicada Mania

The 7th International Film Festival of Insects is happening in October:

The Languedoc-Roussillon Department of Insects and their Environment (OPIE-LR), organizers of the International Insect Film Festival invite you to submit your audiovisual projects.

Our aim is to develop scientific mediation, to promote interest in invertebrate life and generally to encourage biodiversity through the medium of film. This is the role to be played by the unique international audiovisual competition, focusing on insects and other continental invertebrates.

FIFI will accept all work (documentaries, fiction, cartoons…) created since 2003.

The deadline for applications is the 30th April 2007. Judging will take place in the National History Museum of Paris on the 16th, 17th and 18th May.

The international jury and the youth jury, along with the public will award 5 trophies and a grand prize of 1,500 euro.

Please don’t hesitate to contact us directly or via our website http://festivalfifi.opielr.org for further information, for rules and regulations or for an application form.

This festival presents the opportunity to mingle with a host of world players in the field of insects, directors, producers, scientists, artists, naturalists and financial players. We would be delighted to welcome you to this forum of meeting and exchange.

There’s plenty of cicada video on YouTube.

I just received a Cicada And Lanternfly display from My-Bugs.com and I couldn’t be happier with it. The display is gorgeous: wood frame, glass on front and back, and 10 wonderful cicadas and lantern flies within. Worth twice the price. Looks exactly like this:

Lantern Flies are closely related to cicadas, are usually more colorful and are called Lantern Flies because of the lantern-like extension of their head.

Technorati Tags: cicada, lantern fly

An interesting article sent to us by Roy Troutman: Periodic Cicadas Help Scientists Study Superfast Muscle.

for scientists at the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS), the periodic cicada also offer clues about how high-speed and high- performance muscles work, and how this knowledge might someday make human muscle work better.