Apparently cicadas serenaded the dinosaurs! Entomologist and Mount St. Joseph professor Gene Kritsky shared the news today that cicadas lived as long as 110 million years ago during the Cretaceous period.

A quote from a press release:

New research has documented that cicadas, those noisy insects that sing during the dog days of summer, have been screaming since the time of the dinosaurs.

A fossil of the oldest definitive cicada to be discovered was described by George Poinar, Jr., Ph.D., professor of zoology at Oregon State University and Gene Kritsky, Ph.D., professor of biology, at the College of Mount St. Joseph in Cincinnati. The cicada, measuring 1.26 mm in length, was named Burmacicada protera.

Read the full Press Release on the MSJ website.

Here is a photo of the ancient Burmacicada protera cicada nymph trapped in amber. Photo credit: George Poinar, Jr., Ph.D.

It looks a lot like a modern-day first-instar cicada nymph.

Update: Here’s a video news story about Gene’s fossil find.

I need a step-up my fossil collecting hobby. It looks like there’s some places in New Jersey to find fossils. Maybe I’ll find a cicada.

Wenilton Luís Daltro posted some interesting cicada items on the message board, and I wanted to post them on the homepage as well.

Quesada gigas song:

Cicada metamorphosis:

And,

Text PDF about brazilian cicadas, with photos.

I saw quite a few articles this weekend about the discovery of bacteria that live within cicada cells that are they key to their long lives underground.

Here’s the Live Science article.

So how do cicadas gather the nutrients they need to survive, despite their low-nutrient diet? McCutcheon says that cicadas supplement their diet by maintaining complicated relationships with two species of specialized bacteria that live inside their cells. The bacteria produce essential nutrients for the cicadas that the animals neither receive from their sap diets nor produce themselves.

New cicada photos from Santisuk Vibul’s in Thailand.

Here’s something special. Roy Troutman has uploaded some HD quality videos of Magicicadas to YouTube. Click the links to see the full-size versions.

Periodical Cicada sitting on leaf in HD:

Periodical Cicada’s heart pumping in HD:

Cicada molting in HD:

Thanks to Elias for sending us the link to this video clip of a Magiciada timbalizing, a.k.a. making the sound they make. The clip is from the show Time Warp which airs on the Discovery channel. Time Warp features video of common, or not-so-common, events slowed down so you can see what your eyes and mind aren’t capable of seeing in normal time. I recommend the show — it’s fun and educational. I saw the episode, and immediately went to their site looking for the clip but they didn’t have it — thankfully someone posted it on YouTube and Elias found it.

Yeah, I know the picture shows a snake, but trust me, the first segment of the clip is about cicadas.

Lately we’ve received quite a few emails asking for audio samples of cicadas and katydids so folks can A) tell them apart, and B) tell what species they are. There’s plenty of sites on the web that feature cicada sounds; look for links tagged AUDIO on my cicada links page. Two particularly good sites for sound files Massachusetts Cicadas and Cicada Central.

In my search for good cicada and katydid sounds, many people recommended the book “The Songs of Insects” by Lang Elliott and Wil Hershberger. I ordered it immediately, and it arrived today. I am truly amazed by this book (and audio CD). The book profiles 75 North American singing insects including cicadas, katydids, crickets, and grasshoppers. Each profile features two excellent color photos of each insect, a map of where you can find them, a description, and the audio CD includes the insects song. The book is over 225 pages long, and a high quality paperback. If you or your kids are interested in signing insects, there’s no better book to buy. All my nieces and nephews are getting this book for Christmas.

The authors of the book have a webpage featuring the songs of the insects featured in the book. Note that the book is lacking in species found in the western U.S. — if you live east of the Rockies this book is awesome.

Listing for bugs is a fun thing to due in these hot summer months — buy this book before the summer ends.

5 out of 5 Marvins.

I recently found a book called A monograph of oriental cicadidae in the Internet Archive. The A monograph of oriental cicadidae was authored by William Lucas Distant, and published in 1892 — that’s 116 years ago! The book contains plenty of text and illustrations, some of which I’ll include below:

Angamiana etherea

Cicada taglica

Cosmopsaltria tripurasura

Peciliopsaltria hampsoni

Terpnosia stipata

Tosena depicta

Tosena sibylla

Tosena splendida

If you believe you’ve been bitten and you’re concerned, the best thing to do is to consult a doctor, not this webpage. :)

Technically cicadas don’t bite or sting; they do however pierce and suck. They might try to pierce and suck you, but don’t worry, they aren’t Vampires nor are they malicious or angry — they’re just ignorant and think you’re a tree. Just remove the cicada from your person, and go about your business. Cicadas also have pointy feet, egg-laying parts (ovipositors) and other sharp parts that might feel like a bite.

Cicadas don’t have jaws (mandibles) like a wasp, mantis or ant, built to tear and chew flesh. Cicadas don’t have stingers, like bees and wasps, meant to deploy venom and paralyze or otherwise harm their victim. See a video of a Japanese hornet to see what I mean.

Cicadas obtain sustenance by drinking tree fluids, which are relatively watery compared to human blood. Drinking human blood would probably kill a cicada.

See if you can spot the cicadas’ sucker in this illustration:

Here’s a photo of a cicada’s mouth parts:

There is also a chance that if you believe you’ve been bitten by a cicada, you might have been bitten by a Cicada Killer Wasp. The Cicada Killer Wasp is a large wasp that hunts cicadas, and usually can be found around cicadas or often attached to a cicada. Cicada Killer Wasps normally avoid humans, but if you mess with one, it might attack.

Tip of the day: If you want to avoid cicadas, don’t use power tools, drills, saws, lawn mowers, weed wackers, leaf blowers, etc. in their presence. Cicadas think the sound made by these tools and machines are other cicadas. Female cicadas want to mate with the male cicadas they think they’re hearing, and male cicadas want to compete. If you can, use these tools in the morning or close to dusk when the temperatures are cooler, and cicadas are less active.

Roy Troutman’s brother in law Gary spotted this Magicicada with an unusually light pronotum. Normally the pronotum features 2 dark/black patches. In this example they are almost non-existent.