Dog-Day Cicada

Neotibicen canicularis — the dog-day cicada — is the iconic North American annual cicada and one of the most familiar sounds of late summer across the eastern US and southern Canada. Unlike the periodical cicadas (genus Magicicada, with 13- or 17-year synchronized broods), dog-day cicadas have an annual life cycle that emerges every late July through early September, with peak song during the hot 'dog days' of summer (a Greco-Roman astronomical reference: the late-summer period when Sirius, the Dog Star, rises with the sun). Adults are 30-35 mm long with stout bodies, broad heads, and translucent wings; nymphs spend 2-5 years underground feeding on tree root xylem before emerging to moult into adults. Male cicadas produce calls using paired tymbal organs on the abdomen — buckling muscles snap the tymbal membrane in and out 300+ times per second, producing a loud whine that can exceed 100 dB SPL at close range — equivalent to a chainsaw or a rock concert and among the loudest sounds produced by any insect. The calls advertise male presence to females and define mating territories. Cicadas have been culturally significant in Japan (semi, the symbolic insect of summer in poetry and art), classical Greece (where Aristotle and Plato wrote about the species), and China (where cicada amber is one of the most-prized funerary ornaments dating back to the Han Dynasty). The dog-day cicada is wholly distinct from the periodical Magicicada cicadas of the eastern US (which emerge in massive synchronized broods every 13 or 17 years).