Hemiptera | Red Rocks Park

Class: Insecta

Order: Hemiptera

Family: Cicadidae (cicadas)

Who hits those real high ear-piercing notes that’s a true bug performer and rock and roll star? It’s the Cicada’s rhythmically magical riffs ringing in the day’s hot times. Always a local favorite musical performer here as the boys of Dog-Days Summer. When Large groups of males congregate together to call a Female Mate it’s called, “Chorusing Centers.” The males can sing almost as loud as a concert here at the Red Rocks Amphitheater; well, almost- like between 80 and 100 decibels, where a rock concert can easily exceed 120 decibels.

Cicadas are a family of insects in the Order Hemiptera. Hemipterans are considered the “true bugs”, those with sucking mouthparts.

According to the Colorado State University Extension website, there are several species of cicadas that occur in Colorado. These include the dog day cicadas (Megatibicen species), Putnam’s cicada (Platypedia putnami), the cactus dodger (Cacama valvata), and the mountain cicada (Okanagana bella). In North America, on the Eastern seaboard there are the famous periodical cicadas which are among the longest living insects known and date back to the Jurassic Period. Scientists still don’t know why the timing is so accurate to the 17th yr. and 13 yr. exactly, except that they are all prime numbers. There are six species of periodical cicadas: three 17 yr. and three 13 yr. types. In North America these insects are among the largest reaching lengths of 5 cm with the smallest about half that in size.

Along Bear Creek in Morrison, Colorado and Mt. Vernon Creek next to the Red Rocks appear these Dog-day cicadas every annual Spring and Summer. Except the life cycles of the so-called annual cicada are not really annual. The emergence of the adult nymph can take between 2 and 5 yrs. All other cicadas from all other biographic regions produce annual broods.

Some Trillion Periodical Cicadas swarmed in this rare 2 Century emergence event in the Spring and Summer of 2024. Any two specific broods of different life cycles dual-emerge only every 221 years: including both these specific broods of the 13 yr. and 17 yr. cycle type. This will occur both in the Northeast with the Northern Illinois and Southeast Great Sothern Brood.

Cicadas will fly up and crawl out to the tips of branches to lay eggs in the end twigs of trees and shrubs thus damaging that small area beyond the point of no return causing its demise and then fall to the ground. The egg develops for around a month before hatching into a larva. When the damaged twig falls onto the ground the hatching nymph crawls under the ground and buries itself. Underground the larvae will find a root (mostly perennials) and using its sucking mouth parts (proboscis) attach itself to the root.

The sole food of the insect nymph comes from liquids flowing in the “plumbing” of a Tree Root and plants living in improved organic soil and can go a long way in explaining why the developmental time is so long for the 17-year variety. Beside a few trace minerals there is very little nutrition in a Tree Root and other plants including the rhizoid on root hairs.

Before the last molt to adulthood, the cicada will climb out of the ground opening little holes too, they crawl up into the natural grass or other plants for cover to shed its final protective casing. Newly emerged cicadas climb up trees and molt into their adult stage, now equipped with wings. In the summer these holes and casings seen (below) are readily observable. The adults live about a month or so around here until the cycle starts all over again.

Cicada nymph molt.

While you may not have seen one of these magnificent insects you certainly have heard then. The often-deafening sound that is so high pitched that its ringing becomes a familiar ‘Rock’ tune in the “dog days of summer.” Sometimes leading to crescendos of ear-piercing length seemly inescapable at times when produced by hundreds of cicadas, in the dog-day afternoon, of Tibicen pruinosa (see above).

These high-pitched ringing sounds are produced by the males to woe a Mate by what are called tymbals on the underside of the first abdominal segment. These tymbals are composed of rib like bands that contract and snap due to muscle control. A majority of space in the insect (last thoracic segment and first 5 segments of the abdomen) is a large air sac that acts as a resonator for the sound produced from the tymbals.

Tymbal Photo Courtesy of Colorado State University

Not all cicadas produce sound this way. A few species perform stridulating or wing-banging to produce sounds.

Class: Insecta

Order: Hemiptera

Family: Phymatidae (ambush bugs)

Hard to follow the Cicadas act…then, which ‘true’ bug has the sexy bad boy reputation with the big guns to back it up?

These predacious bugs were once classified with the family Reduviidae (assassin bugs) but recently given family status. Both assassin and ambush bugs, as their name suggests, are voracious predators feeding on all types of arthropods. Reduviidae in the genus Triatoma are vectors of disease (sleeping sickness) among humans.

The Phymatidae (shown above) feeds mainly on bees, wasps (Hymenoptera), flies (Diptera) and of course a miller moth or two. They are stouter than the assassin bugs with enlarged fore limbs for grasping onto their prey. These brightly colored insects prefer flowers of similar or equal color value, such as this “Blazing Star” or Gayfeather (Liatris punctata) to hide in camouflage for an ambush position grasping onto prey as it approaches to feed.

Key Traits:

Camouflaged body for hiding among flowers that are the same color value and shape, meaning too look at a Black and White photo next to the yellow camouflage on the bug and the violet Gayfeather flower as it appears close to the same gray scale value or the same one as Bees have trichromatic vision; and don’t see red colors but more on the Ultraviolet side and recognizing a flowers shapes and the Ambush Bug is even positioned to look like the point physically of the blossom also positioned to grab at head or abdominal area of the prey instantly when it lands on the flower
Raptorial forelegs built for grasping prey
Piercing-sucking mouthparts, like all Hemipterans
Known to feed on pollinators, sometimes twice their size

This was written in collaboration with Professor Clark Pearson, PhD. Entomology and Biology, Nevada State University

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