The Sound of Summer – Bladder Cicada by Katie Asplin

The Sound of Summer – Bladder Cicada (Cytosoma Saundersii)

These bright green cicadas, with their leaf-like wings, are difficult to see but easy to hear across Queensland from dusk to early evening. The large, hollow abdomen that gives this cicada its name, acts as an echo-chamber to amplify the males’ frog-like calls, made by two drum-like membranes called tymbals. Cicadas lay their eggs on tree branches and as the juvenile nymphs emerge, they fall to the ground, burrow under the soil and feed on the sap of trees. They can remain underground for many years before emerging from the soil and completing their final moult before adulthood.