A cicada, also known as tibicen pruinosus and the dog days cicada, clings to the bark of a tree sounding its shrill mating call after shedding its skin on Wednesday, Aug. 22, 2007. Ideal climate conditions have produced an abundance of cicadas in northeast Kansas. The cicada chorus drowns out most sounds in the evening hours.
Jeff Cole, a Ph.D. candidate in the ecology and evolutionary biology department at Kansas University, displays a collection of cicada specimens used to study the insect. Cicadas, whose shrill song can be heard throughout Lawrence in the evening, is the world's loudest insect and can produce sounds up to 120 decibels. Cole is pictured on Wednesday at his Haworth Hall lab at KU.
The skin of a cicada clings to the bark of a tree in central Lawrence.
Cicadas typically sing their mating call in the late evening and into the night to avoid predation.
Jeff Cole, a Ph.D. candidate in the ecology and evolutionary biology department at Kansas University, displays a cicada specimen Wednesday, Aug. 23, 2007, at his Haworth Hall lab at KU.
Male cicadas congregate in trees and shrubs to sing their mating call in chorus in an attempt to attract large numbers of females.
Jeff Cole displays the skin of a cicada at Kansas University.
Female cicadas deposit their eggs in trees. The eggs hatch and the larvae fall to the ground, where they burrow for anywhere from two to 17 years, depending on the species.
Cicadas emerge from the ground and shed their skin, a process called molting.
A deceased cicada, measuring about 3 inches long.
The average life span of an adult cicada is three weeks.
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