page_title: Cicada
section_title: Antipredator adaptations
hierarchical_section_title: Cicada / Predators, parasites and pathogens / Antipredator adaptations
caption_attribution_description: English: Cicada camouflaged on an olive tree. Kassiopi, Corfu, Greece.
context_page_description: The cicadas are a superfamily, the Cicadoidea, of insects in the order Hemiptera. They are in the suborder Auchenorrhyncha, along with smaller jumping bugs such as leafhoppers and froghoppers. The superfamily is divided into two families, Tettigarctidae, with two species in Australia, and Cicadidae, with more than 3,000 species described from around the world; many species remain undescribed.
  Cicadas have prominent eyes set wide apart, short antennae, and membranous front wings. They have an exceptionally loud song, produced in most species by the rapid buckling and unbuckling of drumlike tymbals. The earliest known fossil Cicadomorpha appeared in the Upper Permian period; extant species occur all around the world in temperate to tropical climates. They typically live in trees, feeding on watery sap from xylem tissue and laying their eggs in a slit in the bark. Most cicadas are cryptic. The vast majority of species are active during the day as adults, with some calling at dawn or dusk. Only a rare few species are known to be nocturnal.
  One genus, the periodical cicadas spend most of their lives as underground nymphs, emerging only after 13 or 17 years.
context_section_description: Cicadas use a variety of strategies to evade predators. Large cicadas can fly rapidly to escape if disturbed. Many are extremely well camouflaged to evade predators such as birds that hunt by sight. As well as being coloured like tree bark, they are disruptively patterned to break up their outlines; their partly transparent wings are held over the body and pressed close to the substrate. Some cicada species play dead when threatened.
  The periodical cicadas (Magicicada) make use of predator satiation: they emerge, all at once, at long intervals of 13 or 17 years; their juveniles are probably the longest-lived of all insect development stages. Since the cicadas in any given area exceeds the number predators can eat, all available predators are sated, and the remaining cicadas can breed in peace.
  Some cicadas such as Hemisciera maculipennis display bright deimatic flash coloration on their hind wings when threatened; the sudden contrast helps to startle predators, giving the cicadas time to escape. The majority of cicadas are diurnal and rely on camouflage when at rest, but some species use aposematism-related Batesian mimicry, wearing the bright colors that warn of toxicity in other animals; the Malaysian Huechys sanguinea has conspicuous red and black warning coloration, is diurnal, and boldly flies about in full view of possible predators.
  Predators such as the sarcophagid fly Emblemasoma hunt cicadas by sound, being attracted to their songs. Singing males soften their song so that the attention of the listener gets distracted to neighbouring louder singers, or cease singing altogether as a predator approaches. A loud cicada song, especially in chorus, has been asserted to repel predators, but observations of predator responses refute the claim.
caption: Cicada disruptively camouflaged on an olive tree
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