Cicada Journals July 29, 2004
07/29/04 - More T. lyricens Found at St. Patrick Cemetery - Lowell, MA.
9:30 am - Back at St. Patrick Cemetery. I went to the same ash tree where I had been finding Cicadas previously. I went to the ash tree that had the deformed T. lyricen Cicada and I found another female T. lyricen just about finishing the molt process.
Upon closer inspection I discovered that this female also has a deformity. It's hind leg on the left side is missing just like the previous male's missing front foreleg. In looking at the exuvium it looks like the rear hind leg never fully developed. It's gonna be interesting to see how she hardens.
A couple of other points about this Cicada. When you click on the ventral view thumbnail to the left, you will see that there is a color variation to the sternites. That being that there is yellow mixed in with the black stripe. This is unusual for a T. lyricen species. The dorsal view shows color patterns indicative of a T. lyricen.
The sternites stripe should be all black. In addition, this specimen is slightly larger than an average specimen of the same species.
I talk about this more in Variations in Species.
07/29/04 - Another Night Visit to St. Patrick Cemetery - Lowell, MA.
10:30 pm - Ok, back at my favorite place to hunt Cicadas. This cemetery seems to be producing very good results. However, time is important so I'm just going to stop in for a quick look around.
I went to my favorite ash trees as these seem to be producing the most Cicadas now. I saw a nymph just about to climb out of reach so I snatched it and placed in my mason jar. This particular ash tree was drippig water through a wound in it's bark. We had a lot of rain the night before.
I checked my other favorite cicada producing ash trees and noticed a newly emerged Cicada approximately 8 feet up from the base of the tree. Another 10 feet higher. I snapped a few night time pictures but they came out blurry as usual. I can't seem to get my friggin' camera to take decent pics. I can only seem to take pics in a controlled environment. I went to the tree that seems to be producing deformed Cicadas, nothing tonight however. This tree seems to be producing Cicadas in the morning.
I got back home at about 11:30 pm. The nymph that I obtained stayed in the jar for about an hour. As long as it didn't have a place in which to anchor it's legs, it really wasn't interested in molting.
I placed the nymph on a lilac branch and snapped a few pics to make sure my camera was at optimum range. It took this nymph a while to settle down to a spot on the branch that it liked in which to molt.
The thumbnails to the left is another cut down time sequence of this Cicada molting. To see the full sequence of events, just click on the Cicada Gallery page.
Note: This female T. lyricen was identical to the previous nymph so I let it go in the morning.
