Male cicada ventral view, prominently displaying the timbals that it uses to make noise (underneath the last pair of legs). Unlike other insects, the sounds is not made by stridulating (ie rubbing two rasped body parts together). The Timbals are ribbed exoskeletal structures that bang up and down on the mostly hollow, air-filled abdomen, creating an amplifed noise like beating a drum. The cicada is also displaying the modified, tubelike mouthpart known as a rostrum that marks it as a Hemipteran, a True Bug.
Posted on: Thu, 20 Mar 2014 10:28:14 +0000
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