Hello everyone,
Weekend science fun is postponed because I’m working on updating behind the scenes. Hopefully this will all go smoothly and you won’t notice any major changes.
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Did anyone figure out why the cricket was pale in color in last week’s post? The answer was that it had just shed its skin or molted. Newly molted insects are often pale in color until their exoskeleton hardens up.
This week’s insect is a bit mysterious as well.
When I worked for The University of Arizona, part of my job was answering questions about insects and plants. I was always getting the question, “What’s this white fuzz on my plants?”
The answer is that a tiny insect called a cixiid (family Cixiidae, pronounced roughly six-ee-iday) in the planthopper group has laid its eggs here. The female insect inserts her eggs and then covers them with a whitish waxy fuzz.
Invariably I would get puzzled looks because no one had ever seen one or even ever heard of these insects before. And why hadn’t they ever seen the immature insects that hatched out? Wouldn’t they be on the plant too? Some people probably thought I was making this up 🙂
The reason you don’t see the immatures is because they fall to the soil when they hatch from the eggs. The nymphs burrow into the soil where they feed on plant roots. Does this sound familiar? Their life cycle is similar to that of cicadas.
In fact the adult insects look a little like tiny cicadas, although they also might be mistaken for flies. After trying to get a photograph of one for a long time, yesterday I finally succeeded.
So, have you ever seen a cixiid?
This weekend is a fine time to lay back in a lawn chair, close your eyes and listen to nature. What do you hear? If you are lucky, perhaps you will hear some birds and a few insects. The dull hum of the honey bees flying from flower to flower, flies buzzing or perhaps in the evening, you may hear a cricket or katydid.
Here’s a video of a field cricket singing to get you in the mood (you may or may not want to listen for the entire 2 minutes 🙂 ). Notice the wings moving. The scrapers on the wings produce the chirping sounds in crickets.
Activity 1.
Children love to make homemade musical instruments. To imitate a cricket, find a small comb and a wooden craft stick to represent the file and scraper on the cricket’s wings. Rub the craft stick along the comb. Try fast and slow.
Listen to some of the insect sounds from the links in the next activity. Design musical instruments to replicate them. Have fun!
Activity 2.
If you live in New York City and are looking for something to do on September 11 or if you are simply interested in crickets and katydids, take a look at the event known as Cricket Crawl.
Although the title is cricket crawl, the scientists are interested in 7 insects, including a variety of katydids. The survey itself takes on a modern twist, because the researchers want citizen scientists to actually record the insects with their cellphones and then submit their recordings. The results will be posted real-time on a blog.
The website has a lot of information about singing insects, such how to identify them and links to recordings of their songs. For example, you can find out what the Indian house cricket from last week’s post sounds like at Singing Insects of North America or take a look at (and a listen to) Songs of Insects, for crickets, katydids and cicadas
Here’s a list of Insect Sounds (from Arizona) that include a wider variety of insects, including a cloud of midges and honey bees.
Hope you have a wonderful Labor Day and listen to some peaceful insect music!
Related posts from this blog:
For more information, see Roberta Gibson Writes.