Ha! UD just walked out of her Montgomery County house to sample the humidity (absurdly high) and instantly saw, clinging to her house, both a living humming red-eyed cicada (it flew off when I approached) and, inches away from it, a discarded cicada shell. She brought the shell in and put it on her writing desk and it looks exactly like this.
August 10th, 2013 at 9:52AM
That sounds like one confused cicada — not only out of place, but also out of season, and potentially off-cycle. Still, I suspect it happens sometimes; leaving aside anomalies with individual organisms, there’s also all the clear-cutting and excavating and trucking around of dirt that occurs in conjunction with construction. I’d imagine that most cicadas caught in such upheavals simply die, but perhaps some survive, but end up disoriented?
August 10th, 2013 at 12:20PM
Contingent Cassandra: Interesting. There’s TONS of construction around here all the time. Big new house, for example, going up just down the street.