Molting Cicada
This morning I found a cicada molting on a car tire. I assume this is a confused Brood X periodical cicada. They are supposed to emerge in 2021, however last year quite a number came out early. This is the first one I have seen so I have no idea how many will come out this year.
It takes a while for them to fully emerge. In the first picture it is most of the way out but pointing away from its exoskeloton. You can see a milky white drop of liquid on the tail end of the shell. This is not normal, I have never seen that before.
After some time it curls up and grabs hold on the exoskeleton and pulls the remaining bit of it's body out.
Once fully emerged it quickly moves off the discarded exoskeleton. The cicada is yellowish white now, but over the next couple of hours it will darken as it's body hardens. It's wings will also lengthen and harden as well.
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Wow, at first I didn't realize what "molt" means (english is not my mother tongue) and it took a while to see what's really going on in the pictures. Simply amazing! The old coat is left like a dry, old husk...
Thank you for sharing this unique photos.
I'm glad you like it. In this particular case, the cicada is doing its final molt from the juvenile nymph stage (which lives underground feeding on sap from tree root and doesn't have wings) to the adult, flying stage.
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