Cicada Journals July 26 to July 28, 2005

07/26/05 - The New "Sit-and-Wait" Method of Collecting Cicadas.

I shoulda thought of this a long time ago. After studying these Cicada Killers for about a week or two, I have learned a whole lot about these cool insects. Instead of me driving everywhere to try to obtain cicadas while they are molting, all I have to do is pull up a chair and wait for a female Cicada Killer to bring in a Cicada.

Today, I managed to wrestle away from female Cicada killers, three Tibicen lyricen cicadas. Two were male and one was a female. It was quite easy really. Here is how I did it:

Please Note: I do not endorse this method of obtaining Cicadas from Cicada Killers. If you try to use the below method described, I will not be held responsible if you accidentally get stung!!

I located several burrows that had female Cicada Killers still in them.
I watched closely and waited until each flew off hunting for cicadas.
Some did not fly off right away, they oriented themselves by making a series of low flights around their burrows just so they knew where it was in relation to other burrows. They eventually made wider and wider turns away from the burrows then flew back to them. They did this several times and then eventually, each flew off.
When each one eventually left, I jammed a stick or two down the burrows' entrance. Sometimes I needed two sticks because the entrances were so large to allow the cicada to be dragged down.
After about 1/2 hour to an hour some of the Cicada Killers came back to their burrows with cicadas. Some others didn't. The ones that did wondered what the heck happened to their entrances and struggled to get their cicadas down the burrow.
During all the confusion, I grabbed cicadas by the wing tips and gently pulled them away from each Cicada Killer. Most were distressed by this and made a lot of mad "buzzing" type noices. But eventually they did let go. When I grabbed a cicada's wing tips, I didn't lift it above the ground but dragged it along the ground in the opposite direction that the Cicada Killer was pulling it almost like playing tug-of-war. You have to be quick because they can move fast with a cicada in their possession.
I have also been successfull in gently batting the cicada away from Cicada Killers.

I did this on three seperate occassions and nothing happened to me. Once I had a cicada however, I made sure I walked away from the burrow a good distance because a female Cicada Killer will stay for a while in order to locate the stolen cicada so I didn't let them see me with their stolen cicadas.

I am starting to believe that even though female Cicada Killers have stingers to sting cicadas, I don't think they want to sting humans, after all it would probably be a big waste of paralizing venom. They are very intimidating by their size though. Some female Cicada Killers can be in excess of two inches long. That's a big wasp.

Some interesting facts about Cicada Killers

Despite common misconceptions, they do not sting and only the female has a true stinger in which to sting Cicadas. However, for this fact alone, I would still be very careful around female Cicada Killers.
When a female Cicada Killer stings a cicada, it only paralizes the cicada and it is still very much alive. It will stay fresh for 10 days.
When the female Cicada Killer is ready to lay an egg, she will lay it on the cicada in her burrow.
When the Cicada Killer larva hatches, it will then eat the cicada while it is alive. Since it is paralized I'm sure it doesn't feel any pain.
The sex of the Cicada Killer wasp is determined by the number of Cicadas the female Cicada Killer brings the larva to feed on. If the larva gets one Cicada, it will be a male. If the larva gets two cicadas it will be female.
Female Cicada Killers are much bigger than male Cicada Killers.

The Tibicen lyricen Specimens Brought in by Cicada Killer Females

Note: The above specimens were photographed for my Tibicen morphological studies and the information can be found here. The above specimens were then donated to Dr. Chuck Holliday of Lafayette College who is studying Cicadas that have been stung by Cicada Killers. Visit Dr. Holliday's Cicada Killers web site for some great information on Cicada Killers.

Other interesting observations

1). The females are very clumsy fliers when burdened with a cicada. They do a lot of "crash landings". If you are in the way of their flight path, then they will crash into you because you are an obstacle that wasn't there when the female oriented herself to the location of her burrow.

2). If they crash land short of their mark, females when burdened with a cicada will try to crawl up anything to try to gain height to fly off again. I observed this three times. The females crawled up my leg to get higher up in which to take off. This was very disconcerting in the beginning because I was afraid of being stung so I "batted them away.

3). Females will fight over a cicada. One of the female cicada killers that I wrestled a cicada from actually tried to posses another female's cicada. Both of these females were crawling up my leg while wrestling with the cicada for possession. Again, I also found this very disconcerting and batted them away.

4). Finally, only Tibicen lyricen cicadas were taken. Even though we have Tibicen lyricen and Tibicen canicularis here, the females were observed only in possession of Tibicen lyricen cicadas. I am assuming because they are bigger than Tibicen canicularis cicadas.

5). I did an experiment where I had in my possession a dead Tibicen canicularis cicada, I placed it on my knee. Two females came close to the cicada but ultimately they didn't take it. I don't know if this was because it was either dead or too small. I suspect probably because it wasn't fresh, I may have to do this again with a live specimen.

I was also able to obtain a female cicada killer. I feel a bit guilty about this but I'm sure I'll get over it. I want to see if the burrow that she made will be taken over by another cicada killer.

I did notice as well that little black wasps were seen to inhabit some of the Cicada killers burrows once they were built.

07/26/05 - Night Of The Cicadas

8:32 pm - North Chelmsford - Ok, today was an unusually hot day. So much so that the Cicadas were singing in full force. The sun went down today around 8:15pm but the Cicadas, both T. lyricen and T. canicularis sang well into 9:00 pm. I wonder if anyone else has experienced this.

Despite popular belief that the reason cicadas sing well after the sun goes down may be due to powerful lights shining on a tree or maybe disturbed by a predator (there is a difference between an male's alarm squawk as a result of predation and a true male singing for females) or perhaps due to unusually hot weather. Well, I can tell you it was the last one, "unusually hot weather" the cicadas have sung well after the sun goes down. The only true Tibicen cicada that is notoreous for singing when the sun goes down is Tibicen auletes but I can tell you that we here in Massachusetts do not have this species.

07/28/05 - The New "Sit and Wait" Method Still Holds True

10:00 am - Pine Grove Cemetery, Westford - Last night we had very bad thunderstorms roll through our area. Power went out around 7:00 pm and didn't come back on till after 11:00 pm. Lots of trees blew over and there was even some hale. Not much to do during that time. However, I was curious as to the devastation that may have occurred in the Cicada Killers' burrows, so I went back today to have a look.

While the burrows were still wet from all the rain the previous evening, there was not much damage. One Cicada Killer female was observed doing some maintainance on her burrow for about an hour. The others were already out hunting for Cicadas.

Since I am here, I decided to sit and wait to see what the Cicada Killers brought in. Sure enough 4 more Cicadas were brought in in the course of an hour and a half. 3 were Tibicen lyricen and out of those two were male and one was female.

Also a Tibicen canicularis was brought in and it was a male. Tibicen canicularis cicadas are quite small and when you factor in the fact that a male T. canicularis' abdomen is mostly hollow, it makes you wonder how much nutritional value is gained for a Cicada Killer larva. I would suspect that a female Cicada Killer may have to bring in several T. canicularis even for the males who usually only get one Cicada.

I also got up the courage today to offer a male Cicada Killer wasp my index finger to perch on in order for him to survey his domain. The image to the left shows him on my index finger. He didn't stay there long because he was off in a flash to chase a male away that entered his territory.

Once you get over the notion that these wasps sting (which is very doubtful) I find that I am quite comfortable around these wasps.

The below images are of the Cicadas brought in by the female Cicada Killers today. Their morphologies have been recorded and can be found on the Morphologies in Tibicen Cicadas page. The specimens were then donated to Dr. Chuck Holliday of Lafayette College who is studying Cicadas that have been stung by Cicada Killers. Visit Dr. Holliday's Cicada Killers web site for some great information on Cicada Killers.