The Noisy Cicada

Every Summer we look forward to fun in the Sun. Warm breezes sweeping across our skin as we soak up the Sun's rays along with all the water fun we can muster up. Vitamin D synthesis is at it's peak since the outdoors is so inviting. Children's laughter heard near and far. Smells of varying barbeques wafting by with every breeze. It's always a fun guessing game of whose cooking what. Enjoyable nonetheless. A feeling of warm comfort fills our souls.

Intertwined with the overflowing fun, our Summer days are filled with the nearly deafening buzzing Cicada sounds echoing from the treetops all around. While birds sing and chirp making the Cicadas noise a little more bearable, it's still annoying to many. Summer evenings are spent warding off the annoying bloodsucking mosquitoes, watching the beautiful sunset upon the horizon while the crickets join in natures choir with their chirping and singing. Yet that annoying loud buzzing hum of these giant insects never seems to let up. Why is this?

The males are the one's who make all the commotion!-

Too many times we hear our husband's or significant other's proudly and loudly complaining how us women never know when to be quiet. As a wife myself, I've heard this too many times to count. My thoughts on this are, if he listened the first five times I say something, then I wouldn't feel the need to repeat myself. Any other women out there relate to this?

Well when it comes to these glorious Cicadas, the males are essentially tiny violins with wings. Seriously, their bodies consist of empty air-filled spaces that amplify the sound they create like sound box resonating chambers. This loud species specific 'singing' is the male Cicadas mating call. Yep, you read that correctly! They are being annoyingly loud to attract in the ladies. And the ladies, well the ladies are pretty much silent!

Fun Fact: Cicadas mating calls can reach 100 decibels and be heard up to 1.5 miles away from the main source. This is equivalent to an approaching subway train, a car horn at 16 feet (5 meters) as well as sporting events such as hockey playoffs and football games. With repeated exposure, hearing loss can occur within 15 minutes! Crazy, I know. To put this into a better more relatable example, motorcycles are 95 decibels. Gas powered lawnmowers and leaf blowers range between 80-85 decibels. So these noise making insect men of sorts are louder than motorcycles and mechanical yard tools!

When we are lakeside, enjoying our ice cold Summer beverages while trying to hold a conversation with friends and family, it always seems like the buzzing from the Cicadas comes in amplifying waves. Meaning it starts off at a manageable hum then grows exceedingly louder to the point that we are essentially yelling at each other to talk. Thing is, that is exactly what is going on because it's a multitude of male Cicadas fighting with each other using sound to draw in the females. Yes, they are absolutely working with all their sound resonating might to be the loudest sound making machines in the treetops; all in hopes of gaining courtship with females who are listening. A battle of the "bands" you can call it. To humans the noises sound alike but the Cicadas use different calls to express alarm or attract the ladies.

Cicadas love the heat and generally are the loudest when the day is the hottest. They do not care for rain or cold-

On the day that I captured this incredible closeup of the Megatibicen resh, the western dusk singing Cicada; it was a hot one. Texas Summers reach into the triple digits often and this very day was no exception. All day long we were forced to listen to these males singing their loudest to get their women. It was deafening because they were so close to our house. Unfortunately somewhere in the tree directly next to my back porch was, if I could guess, at least a hundred or more of these loud bodied insects. We always hear them but rarely see them. Until this day, that is.

We had a brief heavy rain storm roll though our area that left everything drenched. The outside temperature dropped 20 degrees swiftly. That means that it was now a humid 89 degrees. The air was thick and the moment I stepped outside, my glasses fogged up immediately. One good thing that this rain brought was silence. For the first time all day, these boys were quiet.

The perfect closeup-

While enjoying listening to the birds singing, as I could actually hear them now; I noticed this big boy sitting upon the eye level tree limb that drapes along my porch railing. I expected him to fly off when I leaned in for a closer peak, but he didn't. I ran back inside to grab my phone hoping to make it back in time to capture this once in a lifetime shot. I was not let down. In fact I took a full on photo shoot of this now silenced male. Capturing incredible details with every tap of my phone screen. Out of all the pictures I captured, this frontal is my favorite. From his big compound grey eyes that were looking right at me, to the bright green venation supporting his incredible transparent antibacterial wings. He was the perfect Cicada model. Yes, once again you read that correctly! Cicada wings are naturally antibacterial.

Antibacterial? What?!-

When water falls onto the Cicadas wings, it is repelled because of the microscopic waxy cones naturally part of this insects biological design. Nature is truly an incredible being. Water rolling off of the wings removes any dirt that may have collected as well. Bacteria landing on the wings surface are not repelled. In fact the bacteria's membranes are torn apart by the nanoscale-sized spikes, the waxy cones as you will. This essentially makes the wings surface the first-known biomaterial that can kill bacteria. Pretty cool, huh?