A vocabulary of landscape — a landscape of words
1467 entries
cicada
A cicada is a broad-headed insect with clear veined wings that spends years underground as a nymph drinking sap from tree roots, then climbs out, splits its skin, and lives a few weeks in the open. The male sings by buckling a pair of ribbed membranes on his abdomen in and out, thousands of times a second, with most of the body hollowed into a sound box. A chorus can run past 100 decibels.
Etymology
The name is Latin, and the Romans took it from a language spoken in Italy before Latin got there, so the word is older than the empire that carried it. It is imitative in origin, an attempt at the sound. English borrowed it directly and left it alone. Australia went the other way and gave its species names like green grocer, black prince, and yellow Monday, which is a whole separate vocabulary invented mostly by children.
Notes
Most cicadas are annual and overlap, so some emerge every year. The periodical cicadas of the eastern United States are the exception: whole broods stay underground for thirteen or seventeen years and come out together in the millions. Both are prime numbers, which is the leading explanation for the timing, since it makes a predator’s cycle hard to synchronize with theirs. The discarded skins stay gripped to bark all summer.