This is a COOL bug

OK, So I got me a cabin in far N. Fla. 30 miles below Valdosta . Just came back from a week up there enjoying ya,lls cool temps. Anyways we got this crazy bug every night slammin into the walls. I mean this thing would hit the wall so hard it sounded like a 22 shot. Do it again and again . I finally had a few cocktails and grabbed him , He went to buzzing real loud. chased the Bride around with him in my hand. Heres a pic. of him . big thing , bout 2/3 inches long. guess they don,t bite cause I,d been bit up bad if they did. We don,t have these things way down south where snakes eat every thing

Looks like a Cicada to me. They get real noisy when you try and pick 'em up.

Cicada....pretty harmless

we always called em june bugs when i was a kid, catch em and tie a thread on one leg and they fly in circles till they get tired. Seen em in all parts of FLA years ago....the times they are a changing.....there was the good ol days,and there are the GOOD ol days..

17 year cicada. Actually they hatch around 12 to 14 years, so I`m told. We always called em locusts, when we were younguns. I still do, mostly. Some years, around here in our swamps, there will be some many, makin` all that racket, that you can`t hear yourself think.

Locusts - cicadas (there are both 17 year and 13 year cycles) - last big batch in North GA was year before last. Real cool to find the dried exoskelton stuck on a tree or a post where they shed it!

From what I know, a June bug is a tumble bug and not a cicada.

Tumble bugs roll "you know what" into litle balls and bury them with their eggs.

sorry

Bill Mc said:

From what I know, a June bug is a tumble bug and not a cicada.

Tumble bugs roll "you know what" into litle balls and bury them with their eggs.

Click to expand...

June bugs are green, tumble bugs are brown, different bugs.

We always called 'em locusts. I used to find their "shells" on trees and would scare my sisters with them. One time, I went to pull one off a tree, and it started moving! Apparently, it hadn't vacated the shell yet. Learned my lesson!

Here's a picture I took of an empty shell I found in the yard last year.

ya we always call them locust as well...wish I had a dollar for everyone of those empty shells we would pick up as a kid!

That looks like an annual cicada, we always called them "jarflies" around here. The periodic (13-17 year) cicadas have red eyes and are more black/yellowish striped looking. We had a big hatch of 17 year cicadas here last year, there were literally millions of them everywhere, you couldn't walk around without one hitting you upside the head and the noise they made would about drive you crazy after awhile.

sautee with mushrooms and add a side of fried cabbage and bacon....


toooo good!

We call 'em July flies in my neck of the woods.

we call'em jar flies.

Locusts are a type of grasshopper, but that is indeed a cicada.

I always called them Locusts. Cought a good size bass with one when I was younger.

Locusts, Chicadas what ever you call em, they can get large and make a heck of a racket. A few years ago one of the kids came in and said he thought he heard a rattle snake out by the pool. It was after dark but being the fearless adventurer that I am I head out to investigate. Don't ask me why but I didn't bother to turn on the outside lights or even grab a flashlight. Most likely I was thinking my boy's imagination had gotten the best of him. Well off I go strutting out across the pool deck barefooted peering into the darkness certain that there is nothing to be found. Then in mid step between my upraised foot and the other I hear it. My gosh it does sound a lot like a rattler and it's right between my feet. I freeze in mid stride and look down but see nothing. Maybe it's a pygmy rattler so I strain harder to see it but still can make out nothing in the darkness. The next move was sort of a combination ballet, hopscotch leap to put some distance between my self and the fluttering noise beneath me.
My heart is pounding and while I look for some implement of death I holler for some one to turn on the lights. By now I'm poised with a shovel reared back over my head prepared to deal a lethal blow to the deadly intruder. Then the lights come on and reveal the source of the noise. There lying on the concrete wildy fluttering its wings against it was a large chicada apparently unable to right itself and fly away.

They do make a lot of noise, there is no doubt about that. Not really a pleasant sound either.

Cicadas. This is what I do with the shells from the nymphs:

You ever do anything with the husks from Dragonfly babies?