Cicadas

I've heard the loud buzzing sound of Cicadas at our cabin property but haven't been able to locate them in the trees. On our recent trip to Iowa we got a chance to view some Cicadas in our son's lawn. The Cicadas we found were the "stragglers" of the Brood IV, the Kansan brood, of the 17-Year Cicadas that emerged in 2015. This is the empty exoskeleton of an adult Cicada.



After staying underground for 17 years the cicadas emerge from the ground as nymphs. The nymphs climb the nearest tree, and shed their nymph exoskeleton. Here's a photo of a newly emerged cicada and an empty nymph exoskeleton above it.



The newly emerged adult cicada will darken in color as the exoskeleton hardens. Adult cicadas have two large "main" eyes and three jewel-like eyes situated between the two main compound eyes.