Cicada Journals July 23 to July 25, 2005
7/23/05 - The Finished Product and More Morphologies Noted
Ok, below are a set of thumbnails to bigger images of the the cicadas that I collected on the 21st during my night visit to Fairview Cemetery. These photos were taken two days after their Teneral stage to ensure they are the true colors.
The Tibicen lyricen specimens have also been added to the Morphologies in Tibicen Cicadas page. You can compare these two new specimens to the previous specimens collected. I am currently working on a morphologies page for Tibicen canicularis as well which will hopefully be up in a week or two. However, even by comparing the below images of the two that I have (last two thumbnails on the right), you can see that they are very different from each other even though they are the same species and are both male.
07/25/05 - Giant Cicada Killer Wasps Invade Westford Cemetery! Film at Eleven!
5:00 pm - Pine Grove Cemetery, Westford - Just kidding :) But man there are tons of Cicada Killer wasps here. It seems like every time I come back, there are more. I'm sitting right in the thick of them and again, they don't seem to be bothering me at all.
I
have noticed many burrows (around 8) under bushes which are in the same
proximity. The mounds that the female Cicada Killer creates are almost touching.
I've also observed females entering and leaving. Is this normal for so many
females to be so close to each other? All the pictures on the web that I
have seen show only individual burrows. From what I have seen, many females
have created a City of Burrows under these bushes.
The
burrows are in an area where the ground slopes down to the bushes and there
is mulch everywhere. Under the mulch is a bed of dried sand, almost like
beach sand, this is what the Cicada Killers are digging into. The entrances
to the burrows are facing towards the downward slope of the ground (see
diagram below).
Not
only were there Cicada Killer burrows underneath the bushes but there also
seemed to be Cicada Killer burrows to either side of the bushes underneath
some ground-type ivy plant. These burrows seemed to be on flat land. I wish
I knew the names of these bushes and ground plants but unfortunately, I'm
no Horticulturist - a person who studies plants. I'll have to ask the boys
at the Westford Town Cemetery department.
A Female's Work is Never Done.
I
even managed to spot a Cicada Killer female digging a burrow. I was laying
right on the ground 11 inches from her with males flying all around and
above me I was right in their territory and I was fine. Man, what does it
take to get stung I wonder? The thumnail to the left is a link to a bigger
picture of a female Cicada killer using her hind legs to move a bunch of
rocks out of her burrow. She'll move these rocks all the way out to the
edge of the sand pile and let them roll down the side, then she will run
back into her burrow to dig out more (click on the two thumbnails below).
It looks like Professor Chuck was right about how she uses those spurs on
her hind legs to dig with.
I was going to post a boatload of pictures of this female digging her burrow, but instead I have opted to show a movie. Below is a three minute movie of a Cicada Killer female digging a burrow. I found this quite fascinating and I apologize for sounding like a dork. (I hate my voice when it's played back to me.) Enjoy the movie anyway. Just click the thumbnail to play the movie. The movie will work either through Quicktime or Windows Media Player.
I know! Maybe tomorrow, I'll try to snatch a few cicadas away from a female cicada killer as she brings them back to her burrow. Wouldn't that be cool? Instead of me driving all over hell's creation to obtain cicadas I'll just wait here and have the Cicada Killers just bring me specimens! Ha! Wouldn't that be funny?
7/25/05 - Two Cicada Killers caught at Pine Grove Cemetery
11:00 am - Pine Grove Cemetery, Westford - So, I have emailed a colleague of mine from New Zealand. He is sending me some New Zealand Cicadas for study. We trade Cicadas often. I mentioned how I had discovered some Cicada Killers and asked if he was interested in having a few for study. Of course he was excited as he never seen a Cicada Killer "in the flesh" as it were. So my mission is to try and obtain some for him.
Slow and Easy, That's the Key.
I managed to catch two cicada killers today. One was on the ground and one was in a bush. I took a wide-mouthed mason jar and when the Cicada Killers landed on the ground, in super-lighning quick fashion, I tried to slam the jar opening over the cicada killer. But alas they were just too quick. They seemed to always be a split second ahead of me. After trying this for an hour, I decided to change my tactic. Instead of trying to go fast, I went very slow. This worked instantly. Maybe the Cicada Killers respond to quick movements and not slow and steady ones.
The two I caught are both approximately the same size. I read some of Professor Chuck Holliday's Cicada Killer web site and it states that Cicada Killers while in general the females are bigger than males, they can come in different sizes. This is my dilema, other than size and/or actually seeing a Cicada Killer either digging a burrow or with a Cicada (I assume those would be female) what other way can you tell gender?
So naturally I fire off a message to Professor Chuck and this was his response:
You can tell females from males by the large pair of spurs at the junction of tibia and tarsus on the last pair of legs on the females only. They also have one less segment in their antennae and abdomens than the males do, but this is harder to see. About 10% of females are in the males size range, but 90% are larger than males.
Females often dig their burrows under brush or overhanging steps, decks,
etc.
I didn't notice any spurs on these specimens and they both seemed to have the same number of segments to their abdomens, so I am going to assume that these are males. I'll need to try to obtain a female some time
