cicada secrets

["Geoffrey Dabb" <>]

Yes, there’s lots.  I typed in ‘cricket, non-crickets, Australia, birds’ and retrieved the below

 

 

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From: [mailto:]
Sent: Monday, May 01, 2006 11:17 AM
To:
Cc: ;
Subject: RE: [canberrabirds] cicada secrets

 

With all due deference….

 

I think it much more likely that it was just a common field cricket (a European import) which are common in Canberra and are particularly vocal after rain. Mole crickets are all together more interesting and much less common.

 

Further, Cicadas cannot be in chrysalis form as they change directly from nymphal stage to adult form after emerging from their underground nymphal feeding stage. (Only butterflies really form a chrysalis; even moths develop into a pupa rather than a chrysalis.)

 

John, unlike crickets, cicadas have specialised “drums” on the underside of their abdomens to produce their characteristic sound.

 

There would, I’m sure, be lots of information on the web about crickets and cicadas and how they generate their sounds.

 

Best,

 

Harvey

 

 

 

Harvey Perkins
CRC Programme
ph (02) 6240 7103     fax (02) 6123 5525

-----Original Message-----
From: shaun bagley [
Sent: Sunday, 30 April 2006 18:42
To: John Leonard; Canberra Birds
Subject: Re: [canberrabirds] cicada secrets

 

John,

 

With all due deference, to use that obsequious legal phrase, think that what you experienced were Mole Crickets. Also called in my backyard after rain. Cicadas cannot make noise in ground since they are in chyrsalis form in which they climb out of the earth to deafen us in the warmer months...after they have split the cases that prevent them making any sound.

 

Regards

 

Shaun

----- Original Message -----

From:

To:

Sent: Saturday, April 29, 2006 4:30 PM

Subject: [canberrabirds] cicada secrets

 

There have been cicadas calling around Hughes after rain and I heard one calling near Hughes Primary School from a patch of bare soil between two areas of concrete. So I cleared away the loose debris on the surface of the soil and discovered its burrow. The cicada was sitting in the burrow with its tail upwards just below the surface, it was making its buzzing noise with its wing cases, by beating them at an incredible speed (I couldn't work out whether it was simply the speed of them, or whether they were rubbing together, or whether they were beating against the roof of the burrow.

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John Leonard
Canberra
Australia
www.jleonard.net