Re: NANFA-- Off topic: East US Cicadas

Todd Crail (toddcrail-in-yahoo.com)
Thu, 13 May 2004 13:00:30 -0700 (PDT)

I'm not sure about the periodic cicadas that are on the east coast right now. The green ones Ray is describing that come out in late July and August in the Midwest I do know something about. The adults don't have a functional "feeding" mouth and live for about 2 weeks. In fact, I think what looks like a "mouth", in spite of the siphon thingie (which may be used to collect water, I'm not sure), is about as useful and analogous as a nipple on a male human. Nature stops needing parts sometimes, but that doesn't mean they're in the way enough to get selected out :)

Todd

Prizma-in-aol.com wrote:
i was up around nashville several several years ago and thousands were out.
we walked thru a university courtyard and they were swirling upward tornado
like in a black column maybe 50, 60 feet up. round and round. pretty cool sight.
the shells were thick covering big tree trunks. interesting exo-skeletons. my
son claimed one drilled his finger a few years back... but i read the other
day they cant bite. they do have a viscious looking mouth part that can
protrude. dont they die pretty quick after molting? if so why would they need that
odd mouth part. looks like a jab sucker.
casper
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