The pulsing song of the cicada is a sound memory that lingers. Heard everywhere, seen rarely, the cicadas are constant companions in a tropical wet forest locality such as the Sarapiqui River valley region of northeastern Costa Rica. Cicadas, small to large insects in the family Cicadidae of the order Homoptera, have large, often bulbous compound eyes, thick body profile, transparent or sometimes smoky-tinted membranous wings folded over the back, and a mottled body coloration, usually of green, brown and black. Females lay eggs in slits they fashion in tree branches.
Growth occurs during the nymph stage, with the animal molting several times.
In Wisconsin during the summer, the clots of white froth clinging to the stems of certain plants are the protective dwellings of spittlebugs, another homopteran cousin. The entire cicada fauna of Costa Rica, a land mass area about one-third that of the State of Wisconsin, consists of close to 30 species, more than all of the U.S. east of the Mississippi. La Tirimbina alone, a postage stamp island of assorted tropical forest habitats, is home to at least 10 species of cicadas. My fieldwork with cicadas between 1970 and 1977 took place primarily at La Tirimbina. Cicadas are subterraneous as immatures, digging through the soil and tapping into living roots for nourishment, but they emerge for a final molt of their nymphal husks above ground.