Thursday, July 18, 2013

Cicada Nymphal Instar


Spied and caught a cicada instar the other night when feeding and putting the animals to bed for the night.  You, or at least me anyway, seldom come across the cicada's at this stage in their life, as they're not in it for very long.  I typically find the abandoned exoskeletal remains hanging all over.

It didn't take this dude long to molt into it's final stage, adulthood.  It was less than a couple hours from catching and placing it in a bug container when we noticed it molted.  It's wings were a neon greenish color and still crinkled up.

In the morning it was done, as seen in the above photo, and ready to be released.  Fortunately, it hung around for Emilie to snap a couple pic then, zooooom, off it flew into a nearby treetop.

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