Like the pod people in Invasion of the Body Snatchers , each cicada leaves behind the hollow, lifeless shell of its former body. No doubt you have seen your share of the grotesque mementos clinging to tree trunks, telephone poles, the sides of buildings, even road signs. They're piled as thick as mulch around the roots of some trees. If you bother to look at the papery husks, you'll see, through the slit in the back, what look like white threads. These are the tubes that allowed the cicada to breathe.
Insects draw oxygen through the sides of their bodies.
Musical though they may be, cicadas don't sing like birds or frogs. Like creatures from behind Alice's looking glass, they are musical instruments that play themselves. Crickets and katydids rub their legs as if dragging bows across violins. Cicadas, on the other hand, are percussionists. They vibrate drumlike organs in their abdomens.