Platypleura rutherfordi
There are summer nights in the African bush when the "singing" of cicadas can be both deafening and unforgettable
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These insects are known as harvest flies in America, and in Zimbabwe as Christmas beetles as this is their peak performance time. In fact they are neither flies nor beetles. They are bugs, for they obtain their food by piercing and sucking and have a fine, sharp pointed labium or tubular mouthpiece. Further they only have a single pair of wings.
The males do the singing. They have a pair of special sound organs at the base and on the underside of the abdomen. These organs are vibrated by powerful muscles and the sound is amplified by large air-sacs in the stomach.
However, both sexes are capable of making whirring and chirping sounds. This they do to attract others of their kind, but how the sounds are heard is unknown for hearing organs are not evident.
Cicadas differ in their singing from crickets and locusts. Not only are the sounds different but they're made differently. Grasshoppers rasp their hind legs against their wings whilst crickets rub their two fore-wings together. |
