Information for Seniors

Appearance

• Cicadas have a wide head, big eyes, four wings and six small legs.
• Unlike other singing insects, such as grasshoppers and crickets, cicadas do not have large hind legs for jumping.

Habitat

• Cicadas live all around NZ, from forests and grassland, to swamps, sand dunes and riverbeds.
• The chorus cicada also lives in cities, perching on fence posts and buildings.
• The small, black Maori cicada species are the only cicadas known to live high up in the mountains.

Life cycle

• Cicadas spend most of their life underground, and emerge to become adults.
• You might see their empty skins on tree trunks.
• The female lays her eggs on plants such as grasses or trees.
• Cream-coloured nymphs hatch out. With claw-like legs they dig about 40 centimetres down into the earth.
• Underground, they shed their skins several times as they grow.
• Most species stay there for three years or more, and then burrow back up to the surface.
• Then, at night, the nymph climbs a tree or other support, and its final skin splits open.
• The adult comes out, with crumpled wings. In the morning it flies away.
• The adults’ mate, and the females lay their eggs.
• Adults live for two to four weeks.

Feeding

• Under the soil, nymphs suck sap from plant roots, using needle-like mouthparts.
• Adults also feed on sap.

Singing

• Only male cicadas sing, to court females.
• The sound is made by membranes known as tymbals on each side of their abdomen.
• The tymbal is pushed out, causing a burst of sound. Then it pops back in.
• By rapidly repeating this, the cicada makes its song.
• Some NZ cicadas also make clapping sounds by flicking their wings against the branch on which they are sitting.
• Both males and females have hearing membranes called tympana. Through these they hear the sound of the males.

Enemies

• Predators and other threats include wasps, beetles, fungal parasites, birds and spiders.