This causes moderate twig dieback and some disfigurement of forest and woodland trees, but no long-term consequences. The eggs hatch after 6 to 7 weeks and the newly hatched nymphs fall to the ground, burrow until they find a suitable tree root, and begin the feeding and waiting that will last until the year 2014. Let's return to the noise for a moment. With populations that can reach up to a million and a half cicadas per acre, the sound can be as deafening as it is incessant. The cicada males sing by vibrating two shell-like drums located along the sides of the abdomen.
Strong muscles vibrate the drum membranes several times per second.
The resulting high-pitched, rapid clicks are resonated through air sacs and other structures to control sound volume and quality. The upward angles of the wings form a megaphone-like chamber that further controls the sound. So, returning to our researcher Raymond Murphy in Malawi, who claims he has found 26 species not previously known to man, and opines that the number might climb to 50, seems to be opening a whole new door to the science of Entomology for the cicada. Oh, by the way, we've had a little fun with this story, and we enjoyed doing it, but we want to return for just a moment to a very serious aspect to all this, the matter of medicine. It has brilliant red and black markings and is the only known cicada used as a blistering agent.