Cicada season!

[mrrranda]

Ok ok ok - I should probably wait until Chassy gets the pictures up, but I saw a really amazing thing last night. He called here around 9:30 last night to say I needed to get over there, because he found a *cicada ready to molt.* Though I caught a couple in progress (also at his house) last year, I've only seen one do that from start to finish

Comments

[scissorella]

ah thats incredible. thank you for sharing :)

[mandy_moon]

Like you, I only saw the process from start to finish once, when I was 7 or so.

Terrifying and fascinating, as I had no idea what the hell was going on with my bug that I had been keeping in a jar. I just let him out for a walk one day and watched him climbed a tree...I didn't worry that he would fly away because he had no wings and because he moved very slowly.

And then, all of a sudden-

Totally baffling to me. Totally alien. And yeah, he was a translucent green when he came out all rumpled from that skin.

I wonder if this sort or experience at childhood is especially personality-shaping. It has to be.

[lunatic13]

Oh, now I feel all deprived that I have never once seen even part of a cicada molting.

I was wondering if you -- either of you, Mrrranda and Becky -- have read Annie Dillard's Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. I think you'd both like it. This entry reminds me of a specific passage about watching a polyphemus moth hatch. (I was going to type it in, but it's rather long...)

[harold_penis]

Gorgeous. We don't have cicadas here. Around your house it must sound just like Japan.