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Sticker of Cassin's periodical cicada
Bug card No. 0245 of 1,500

Cassin's periodical cicada

Magicicada cassini
Name means: “named in honour of John Cassin, an American bird scientist”
Eats: PlantsTrue bugs and cicadasForests and woods6 legs

Cassin's periodical cicada has a black body, orange legs and big red eyes. It spends 17 whole years underground as a baby. Then, all at the same time, thousands and thousands of them dig up into the open air and start to sing.

Lives in
North America, across the north of the United States and the south of Canada
Length
2.4 to 2.7 cm (0.94 to 1.1 in)
from the head to the tip of the folded wings
Top speed
about 11 km/h (6.8 mph)
Flying, estimate
Can it hurt you?
Harmless
Harmless to people. It does not sting or bite, but so many of them can hurt young trees when they lay their eggs in the twigs.
What does it eat?
The grown-ups suck sap from trees and bushes. The babies live underground and suck watery sap from tree roots.
For real!Photo of Cassin's periodical cicada
Picture by Fontaine K, Cooley J, Simon C (2007). CC BY 2.5, via Wikimedia Commons.

How big is it?

How long is it?

Cassin's periodical cicada about 2.7 cm long (1.1 in)A grain of rice about 6 mm (0.24 in)A toy building brick about 3.2 cm (1.3 in)A crayon about 9 cm (3.5 in)
as long as 4 grains of rice in a rowcould fly across a whole football pitch in 34 secondsmoves 110 times its own body length every second

How big is Cassin's periodical cicada compared to YOU?

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How fast is it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

1

The boy cicadas can sing and fly all together at the same moment, tens of thousands of them, like a huge choir.

2

Its song is a row of ticks followed by a long buzz that goes up and down.

3

The root sap the babies drink is not very filling, so they grow very slowly.

4

The baby sheds its skin five times underground before it climbs up a plant and becomes a winged cicada.

5

Blue-eyed cicadas really exist, but only about one in a million has them.

you asked

Most asked questions about Cassin's periodical cicada

?How long do 17-year cicadas live underground?

About 17 years. Some groups come up a bit earlier or later, between 13 and 21 years.

?Do cicadas bite or sting?

No. They are harmless to people, they only suck sap from plants.

?Why do cicadas make so much noise?

The boys sing together in big groups to attract the girls.

Myth buster

Myth: If you catch a blue-eyed cicada, a laboratory will pay you a million dollars.

Truth: That is just a story. Blue-eyed cicadas are very rare, but no laboratory pays a reward like that for them.

For bug experts

Scientific name
Magicicada cassini
Named by
Fisher, 1852
Group
True bugs and cicadas
Family
Cicadidae
Classification
Insecta > Hemiptera > Cicadidae
Lives on
North America
Also known as
17-year cicada, Dwarf periodical cicada

Where the facts come from

  1. Magicicada cassini (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
  2. Picture by Fontaine K, Cooley J, Simon C (2007). CC BY 2.5, Wikimedia Commons. The round sticker of this bug is cut from the same picture.

If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at hello@bugwiki.app and we will fix it.

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