Descriptive Essay On Cicadas

Cicadas are probably best known for their buzzing and clicking noises and the shells they leave on the trees they ascend. Certain species of cicada have a peculiar life cycle with thousands crawling out of the ground every summer, and others coming out every 13 to 17 years. The annual cicadas are known as dog day cicadas, when they are young they are a light green and turn a chestnut when mature. Every summer my brother and I would play games with the neighborhood kids. We did everything ranging from baseball, frisbee, tag, ghost in the graveyard, literally everything. Most of all we enjoyed collecting the elusive Illinois cicada shells. We would run from tree to tree like frogs jump from lily pads. Gathering every cicada shell we could manage

We went in to grab what we had thought to be any ordinary shell but had found it moving. After further inspection, we saw the green squishy flesh desperately trying to break out of its crusty encasing, no rupture in the shell indicated that the unfortunate cicada had much more pushing to go to escape its personal prison. My brother lifted the creature and attached its claws onto his brown dinosaur shirt and let the cicada hang, after playing with the bug for 5 or so minutes on his shirt he had become uninterested, which seemed to be happening increasing. He then placed the cicada back on the maple and

Evidently the arthropod had managed to make a schism in its exoskeleton and its infant figure flapped out all at once. The eyes of the cicada intruded out like tear drops on the sides of its face. The bug hung in the crease of its former home at what seemed to be a perfect 90 degree angle. Sunlight beet down on us, which in turn accelerated the drying up of the infant cicadas moist body and wings. As the cicada dried its floppy wings uncoiled and straightened out, making a beautiful display of natural design. At this moment my mind instantaneously jumped to my brother, who in my error, had missed this important milestone in insect studies. I called out to him several times from beside the maple tree, eventually giving up and going inside to fetch him. My efforts were to no avail, and I retreated back outside to my new found interest. However, it had been a long time since my last check up, the cicada had hardened its shell and wings were in full development. Most of all it had climbed a good 3 feet up the tree from its shell, no longer in my reach to retrieve it. I watched it continue to crawl up and up, its body a smooth brown camouflaging into the tree. Suddenly, with a high pitched murmur and a flap of its wings, my friend was gone. I attached my friends shell onto my light green shirt for safe keepings to be