Manna Cicada

Cicada orni — the manna cicada — is the most familiar cicada species across the Mediterranean basin and one of the most culturally significant insects in Western antiquity. The species is widespread across southern Europe (Spain, Italy, Greece, Balkans), North Africa, and the Levant. Adults are 25-30 mm body length with stout bodies, broad heads, prominent dark compound eyes, and translucent wings. The species is the cicada whose chorus defined the summer soundscape of ancient Greek and Roman Mediterranean civilizations — written about extensively in classical literature by Plato (in Phaedrus, where Socrates discusses the cicadas singing in the Athenian heat), Aristotle (in History of Animals, where he attempts to explain the species' biology), Hesiod (Works and Days), Sappho (in surviving fragments), Anacreon, Theocritus, and Virgil (in the Eclogues and Georgics). The Greek word for cicada (τέττιξ tettix) was used in poetry as a metaphor for inspired song; the Romans inherited the imagery in their term cicada, which later gave the genus its scientific binomial. The species' specific name 'orni' refers to the host plant of the nymphs: the manna ash (Fraxinus ornus), a Mediterranean tree historically tapped for its sap-resin (called 'manna') and used as a natural sweetener and laxative — the same tree-resin trade that gave the species its common name. Adult male cicadas produce calls using paired tymbal organs (similar to North American cicadas) — the manna cicada chorus reaches over 100 dB at close range and is among the most intense temperate insect choruses on Earth. Nymphs spend 4-6 years underground feeding on tree root xylem sap before emerging to molt into adults; adults live ~6 weeks during the late-summer 'cicada season' that runs from late July through early September.