A visitor in my laundry....

A lovely little friend came to visit me (been having a few pass by lately...must be good luck or something)

There he (or she) was keeping warm on the clothes line all comfy in a flannel bed sheet.

what kind of insect is that?

I'm sorry but I hate insects of any kind touching me or something I wear. gives me shivers thinking about it lol. I always end up paroniod that it layed eggs on my stuff and their going to hatch and be crawling all over me. *shiver*

That, my friends, is a Cicada. Apparently, those are the things you hear making that electric buzzing sound at the tops of trees and such.

http://www.cicadas.info/

Yes it's a Cicada (Ciccada) they commonly are called Tree Frogs or Tree Toads, this is just a little guy maybe a baby I've had much bigger ones around here.

They do buzzz in the hot humid weather especially, makes the trees sound so full!

Sorry to give you the shivers Jackie LOL

He is awesome. The sound of cicadas is the sound of summer. Personally, I'm mad about bugs, not sure why, I find them almost heroic, some of them live for just a few hours, but they do it perfectly. India is awesome for insects, everything is bigger, spiders the size of plums (that's just the bodies), scorpions of every conceivable size (which is why you gotta check your shoes each morning for the tiny fellows, they are the most deadly), the place is teeming. And when they die, the ants carry them off, molecule by molecule.

There's a sound I hear at night, like a chuckle, fairly loud, and I've often wondered what it is. Anyone know? Probably a bird, but I really have no idea.

OOOO! A cicada! My youngest son saw one of these a couple days ago and totally freaked out at the HUGE bug. :) They can be a little intimidating I guess. To me the sound has always meant school is about to start. Ahhh... what neato memories!

Oh and my favorite part -- they shed (molt) an almost perfectly intact husk of exoskeleton... You can find them stuck all over the trees in the fall time... We used to LOVE sticking them on people and scaring them to death. I uh.. think that traditionally the boys used to chase the girls around with the things but I wasn't your stereotypical little girl.

Aren't those the ones that come out every 17 years? David Letterman had a giant cicada costumed guy on his show last summer...

So nice of you Luba, to take this guy in and give him a nice cozy home. :love: :D
***shudder***

Ewwwww!!!!!!!

I agree ewww. I was thinking I was going to see a beautiful butterfly.

Yup - "eeewwwwwww" would be my reaction as well. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: More than 4 legs = not welcome in my home. :p

More than 4 legs = not welcome in my home.
That's my rule as well. goes for butterflys as well, I love to look at them but I do not want them touching me lol.

I'm sorry guys you sound like my mother who promtly screamed her head off while taking this sheet in from the line, ran to the gate yelling her head off at ME....like it's MY fault ahahah the buzzers in the laundry.

Poor ma she doesn't like them much, but he didn't harm her hahaha

Sorry but no butterfly this time, maybe another time my Phlox is starting to bloom and they love to land on it so I'll b sure to not freak you out atleast for the rest of tonight :p

they shed (molt) an almost perfectly intact husk of exoskeleton... You can find them stuck all over the trees in the fall time...
YES Pags you're right and I didn't realize it until NOW I remember as a kid yes yes yes it musta been once in the 17yr cycle when there are tonnes of them (lol @ David Letterman what a hoot)

I remember tonnes of them all over the pine trees in the park wehre Ilive and I didn't know what the heck they were....Pags you sooo smart!!

SO, anyone wanna help name him??

Egad I really do learn something new every day!! I was totally aware of these big loud bugs.. The locals called them 'locusts' when we were growing up -- even though they're nothing like actual locusts... I suppose because they sort of invade and eat in massive swarms like the real thing. The street where I grew up was actually Locust Street. :D And we had nothing but huge pine trees in our yard -- full of cicadae at the end of every summer.

Which is exactly why I had no idea about the 17 year cycle! I suppose since the broods (can you call them broods?) were staggered over each year we never had to wait through a whole cycle to have a big swarm and just got invaded each and every year What a nifty thing to learn!

I also read somewhere they're the only insects known to actually 'sweat'. How's that for useful knowledge? Huh?

I think it's a she, Luba. I mean - she looks like a she. She's only got about a month to live... so make the name a good one. She sort of looks like a Jenny to me. Or maybe Margaret. Margie?

A month to live :(

Margie sniff sniff dont go too soon I love your beautiful sound!

Maybe six weeks? But it will be a full life! A good life. Make sure she gets to lay those eggies!

HAHAHA maybe layed the eggs in my sheet which is now in the house ROTFLMHO....I better go put it back on the line for awhile :p

If Margie is a she, then she's not the one making that beautiful sound. Only the males buzz (or so I've read). And yes, pags, some people do call them "locusts" - I read that somewhere recently as well. I don't remember if that's because they're related, or have a similar behaviour, or because of the sound they make, or what. Hmmm.... I'll have to go look that up again...

We went to the Toronto Zoo with the kids earlier this week. The butterfly exhibit was beautiful! :love: Easily the best part of the whole zoo. I love butterfiles - they're so peaceful and gentle. That's probably the only bug that wouldn't die and instant and horrible death if it came into my house - I'd definitely catch it and release it outside. Butterflies, and the occasional praying mantis and stick bug that I find around the front garden (although I haven't seen either of those this year :( ). Anything else is toast. :evil:

They have the buzzer, that figures only the males yet again ;)

Oh and I didn't know the zoo had a butterfly exhibit I may just go.
I've been boycotting the zoo since the canada geese episode and since finding out they sell their deer to hunting farms :(

Is it worth it to go to the zoo just for the exhibit? Would I be able to get any good pics you think?

I haven't heard about the geese issue?? I heard about the deer, but in all honesty, what are their options? They can't release them into the wild. I don't think what they're doing is right, but I can't figure out what else they can do.

Oh, the butterfly exhibit is great! We took loads of pictures. I'll try to post a few for you. They will land right on you, if you hold still long enough. :D There are all sorts of butterflies in there, great big ones too! It's right near the main entrance in the Indo-Malayan section, the Malayan Woods exhibit.

:p Wow it sounds beautiful I may go off my boycott for awhile...lol ;)

I would love to see pictures if you would like to share them that would be great. Is it near the entrance to the zoo :D

Oh the geese issue, they wanted to relocate some geese but did it in a back door sneaky way....loaded hundreds of them into a cube van in the middle of summer to move them. Most died from being trampled and through heat exhaustion in the back of the van. To try to cover it up and w/o reporting it to the MOE they then got a back hoe and dug a big pit and dumped the dead geese in the pit. :(

As for the deer, they do have some options of sterilization and isolating the males from females during mating season. THey're a zoo man they have to know how to do it...I think they get $$$ from the hunting farms and thats why they do it !

Oooh, that's a nasty story. I hope whoever made that decision got the axe. Yeah, I guess if anyone would know about deer husbandry, it should be them. :confused: But maybe they do need the money after all. What the heck do I know about running a zoo? :p

As promised, here are a couple of the butterfly pics. We tried taking them with our macro lens, but you seriously need a tripod for that, so a lot of the ones we took are blurry. These are the best of the lot. Enjoy! :D

Wow. Only one pic at a time? Since when?

HA one pic at a time since like a LONG time ago

The pics are breathtakingly beautiful I MUST GO!

Remember this...
'I wanna go to the zoo zoo zoo, I wanna go to the zoo with you. See lots of friends chat with the animals...somethin somethin....I wanna go to the zoo with you! "

haha

Here is a pic my daughter took inside the butterfly pavillion when we went last week.

I like the wall of fish though.

Those are GREAT pics :D

I think I could stare at that wall of fish for days! We don't have that here. We have whales, but they're never there at the Biodome when I go...

I know this is an oldish thread, but didn't think a new one was warrented for what I have to post:

If any of you have mysterious 6 legged friends (or enemies as it may be) sharing your home, this website will helpfully identify your housemate:
http://www.whatsthatbug.com/

Why does bug IDing have to involve so much bug sex? It seems some avid bug looker likes to take buggy porn... :)

Fantastic pictures. Growing up, my dad used to say those noises in
the trees were 'tree frogs' and somehow I couldn't understand that,
but every year when I hear them, I would say, 'there's the frogs, summer
is almost over'. It sure is nice to see what one looks like, thank you. :p

I love the buzz of the Cicadas,as well as the sounds of Crickets at night,all part of nearing the end summer :(
I swooped up a Cicada from my pool the other day,I always"rescue"bugs in my pool,unfortunately the Cicada was dead.
They are unfortunate they are not as pretty as a butterfly,but as long as they stay off me,I enjoy their sound and short life
I've often seen birds catch them in flight,I'd think they would be really hard to digest :D

Luba, I don't hear the tree frogs anymore. What is their life span?

The ones at my cottage only sing in the spring, its mating season. Where are you honey :p

Brampton Ontario....they were singing a couple of weeks ago. But not now.

May be its because the weather is getting cooler?