A week or so ago, I was waiting at a street corner for a bus connection, and summer time has been...well...very summery in Chicago this year, so that standing for a bus wasn't the most agreeable. Though, for this particular stop, some trees provided shade from the noon sun.
Twenty-five minutes into the wait, I heard a telltale rattle in a tree right behind me. Being only about twelve feet high, it had a few branches about eye level. Right there, a cicada!
Unlike more commonly known 13 or 17 year broods, some cicada go through their life cycle in 2 or 3 years and with overlapping generations, these insects are usually seen and heard annually. I had noticed the racket six weeks ago, but I wasn't quite sure, because I knew it wasn't seventeen years since the last big appearance in 2005.
But my mother mentioned seeing one and I found an entry on Wikipedia about cicadas. In fact, several weeks ago, Sandra, her friend Bjarne, and I spotted an unknown insect coming out of its husk. Reading the wikipedia page, I found this animation of a cicada molting. Yep, we had seen a Tibicen, dog day cicada, one of the quicker generation species, without knowing it.
Though on that day while waiting for a bus, I saw one on branch a feet few away from me. I heard that loud rattling, saw the abdomen of the insect begin to vibrate as the sound grew louder. Then the rattle subsided. I watched the cicada. Perhaps it spotted me. Its abdomen shook and its song grew louder and ebbed once again. Then it flew off.
And if the bus wasn't late, I would missed that moment.
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