An amazing transformation

While down in West Virginia this weekend, I had occasion to visit the above outhouse on Saturday night. Now, that sounds really weird, I know. But, my purposes were noble - this structure, which is on the upper rim of the New River gorge in a small park called Burnwood, is famous for the moths that it attracts. That light remains on all night, and there is almost always something cool that has flown in and landed on the wall.

The field trips for the New River Birding and Nature Festival gather at Burnwood, and we always check the outhouse first thing in the morning. Lunas and many other cool moths are often found, and this may be the most heavily scrutinized john in the Mountaineer State.

While the outhouse was not as dense with moths as it is in spring, I wasn't disappointed. This is a Hog Sphinx, Darapsa myron, the larvae of which feed on Virginia Creeper, Parthenocissus quinquefolia, and other members of the grape family.

This one is even cooler. It is a Small-eyed Sphinx, Paonias myops, which uses cherry and birch trees as hosts, among others.

Small-eyed Sphinx has a distinctive posture when at rest, with the abdomen strongly curled upwards.

Anyway, I heard Nebraska Coneheads, Neoconocephalus nebrascensis, singing from nearby scruffy woodland borders, so off I went to investigate. In the course of searching for the coneheads, I lucked into this - a newly emerging annual cicada, attached to the culm of a Deer's-tongue Grass, Panicum clandestinum. The above shot was taken at 10 pm, and the cicada had probably begun splitting its way out of its larval case within an hour of my arrival.

There are about a half-dozen species of annual cicadas in these parts, and they live most of their lives subterraneously as nymphs, tapping into tree roots for nutrients. When some internal alarm clock rings, they emerge from the ground, climb up a plant, and begin the process of transformation into the winged adult. At this point, the wing buds are quite apparent and the insect is in the process of pulling itself upright. Cicadas normally emerge under cover of darkness to avoid predators. If they tried this transformation during the day, a bird or some other predator would have an easy feast.

By 10:30 pm, it looked like this. I could practically see the wings pumping up as the creature's hemolymph coursed through its veins. It was like watching air being slowly pumped into an inflatable raft.

Ten-fifteen minutes later and the wings had filled out, becoming a gorgeous translucent shade of blue-green. The patterning on the thorax is developing nicely, and the abdomen is rapidy enlarging. The animal can now be identified with some certainty as a Lyric Cicada, Tibicen lyricen, a common species in the area and one that I heard singing during the day.

Only five minutes or so later, and the wings had become clearer and more expanded.

By 11:15, the cicada was pretty much developed, sans some coloration and final hardening of its body parts. I had to leave at this point, but shortly after sunup the following morning, the cicada probably took its inaugural flight, high into the boughs of nearby trees. There, it would join numerous others and add to the mid-summer cacophony of piercing drawn-out buzzes that these strange insects produce.