During the visit to Pakke Kessang in western Arunachal Pradesh, each of the people accompanying me had a different agenda. While I was mainly looking for butterflies, my son Yash was observing moth behaviour and Tarun and Rishiddh, the two researchers with me, were on the lookout for an interesting group of insects called cicadas. Ever been in a forest when a loud ruckus greets you, and then suddenly there is silence? If so, more than likely you have just been welcomed by cicadas!
Cicadas are an interesting insect group that are mostly active during the day. The word cicada means ‘tree cricket’ in Latin. This name is given to the insect group because the male cicadas create a cacophony of sound just like crickets. The males call together, with their sounds rising to a crescendo, and then suddenly they fall silent, leaving an eerie emptiness in the forest. Crickets are well known for making sound by rubbing their limbs against their wings. Cicadas use a different mechanism to make their loud sounds. A part of their body is constructed like a sound box, and they vibrate their body parts to produce sound. The sounds that the male cicada produces is so loud that if a human were to stand very close to the cicada, he or she might end up injuring the eardrums! Cicadas also have the same fear, so they disable their eardrums when they call!
Another interesting insight into the lives of cicadas is their life cycle. While some cicadas emerge every year, others have life cycles that vary from two to five years. One genus of cicadas that live in the Americas called Magicicada has life cycles of thirteen or seventeen years! Imagine, the entire cycle of egg-laying to larva to pupa and then the nymph (young insect) to the adult insect can take seventeen long years.
We saw at least five different species of cicada at Pakke Kessang, and Tarun helped me identify some of them. I was amazed that Tarun and Rishiddh were able to tell the cicadas apart by their calls. I reasoned that if I could tell frogs and birds apart by their calls, the same would hold true for cicadas.
Cicadas mainly live on trees, but they can be seen flying overhead, and occasionally settle on low bushes and scrubs.
Amongst the most beautiful of these creatures that we spotted was a species called Talainga binghami (sorry, it does not have a common name yet). A flash of white alerted us to the presence of this species. While the forewings of this cicada were criss-crossed with black veins, the hind wings were white, and that’s what we saw when they flew.
While sitting, the cicadas’ most prominent feature was a pair of lovely blood-red eyes, which peered out at us inquisitively. “Wanna hear me call?” the cicada seemed to say to us!
Go green
Are you interested in these marvellous creatures? Look for cicadas in the forests near your home and you can attempt to identify the ones that you see by visiting the Cicadas of India website www.indiancicadas.org.
(Feedback and queries are welcome at sanjay.sondhi1@gmail.com )