How long is the lifespan of a cicada, and how many years can it generally live?
Cicadas usually live in temperate to tropical regions around the world, with a few distributed in desert areas. They are the general name for insects of the family Cicadidae in the suborder Auchenorrhyncha of the order Hemiptera. The nymphs live in the soil and belong to the incomplete metamorphosis insects. The nymphs suck the roots of plants, and the adults eat the sap of plants. Now let us take a look at how long the lifespan of a cicada is!
How long is the lifespan of a cicada
Different species of cicadas have different life cycles. The life cycle of French cicadas is mostly 4 years, while in North America there are cicadas with a lifespan of up to 17 years. The lifespan of Chinese cicadas is mostly 3 to 7 years, of which nearly half are 5 years, and a few can live through 8 to 9 years.
What do cicadas eat
The nymphs of cicadas live in the soil and use their piercing-sucking mouthparts to pierce and suck the sap from plant roots. They usually stay in the soil for several years or even more than ten years, such as 3 years, 5 years, and also 17 years. Adults chirp in trees in summer and feed by piercing tree sap with their needle-like mouthparts.
The sound-producing principle of cicadas
The cicadas that can chirp are male cicadas. The sound-producing organ is at the base of the abdomen, like a large drum covered with a tympanic membrane. The tympanic membrane vibrates and produces sound. Because the singing muscles can contract and relax about 10,000 times per second, and the space between the cover plate and the tympanic membrane is empty, it can play a resonating role, so their chirping is particularly loud, and they can take turns using various different tones to sing passionately. The sound-producing structure of female cicadas is incomplete and they cannot make sounds, so they are “mute cicadas”.
The growth process of cicadas
1. Cicada eggs: Cicadas transform from pupae into adults every year from June to July and then lay eggs within just a few days. The eggs have their peak hatching period from late May to early June of the following year, and the hatching activity ends in late June. Most hatching occurs during the day in the afternoon, accounting for about 80%, while less hatching occurs at night, about 20%. The egg stage is close to 300 days.
2. Nymphs: The nymphs of cicadas live in the soil. They have a pair of strong digging front legs and suck sap from the roots of host plants. They are not very active and usually stay in the soil for several years or even more than ten years. After autumn when the temperature drops, they burrow into deep soil layers to overwinter, and after spring warms up they migrate upward again to activity near tree roots. In a year, the number of nymphs in the soil is highest in May.
3. Adults: The mature nymphs of cicadas emerge from the soil from late May to mid-to-late August, molt and eclose into adults. The peak period for adult emergence is from mid-June to mid-July, and the end period is in early October. About 20 days after adult eclosion, they mate and lay eggs. Egg laying begins in late June, the peak period for adult egg laying is from late June to late August, the end period for egg laying is from early September to early October, and the final sighting period is in early November.