The Cicada : its predators |
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| Misfortunes of the Cicada start as
of the laying. Whereas our insect is absorbed in its maternal work, a tiny black midge, from four to five millimetres, provided him also with a drill, is held on the heels of the layer. As soon as the Cicada has just deposited its eights to ten eggs, our pirate deposits an egg, of hasty blossoming, giving a small worm, which will taste ten boiled eggs. During its underground life, the larva of Cicada is the prey of a carnivorous insect: the courtilière, also called "mole cricket". When the Cicada left ground, driven for the last time, it can be eaten by the ants, spiders, birds, etc. When it is adult, the sparrow is some fond of delicacies, but it has another more terrible enemy, it is the green grasshopper, carnivorous huntress, practising the night especially, whereas the Cicada rests its diurnal symphonies. It is not rare to hear the night the lamentations of our Cicada, dissected alive by the locuste, armed with strong a jaw. It has trémousser in vain and to shout, it will be broken and emptied. The grasshopper does not hesitate to launch out to the continuation of the Cicada in flight, the such sparrowhawk continuing the turtle-dove. Its only means of defense is to flee or be posed on objects which have the same color as it: dead barks, sheets. It is camouflaged. It is a recognized fact. Around the Mediterranean, there are less and less cicadas. One evokes pollution and the chemicals. Certain studied cicadas two centuries ago, like Tibicina Tomentosa, said cigalon of Provence, practically disappeared. In certain areas of the world, in the Hawaii islands in particular, one destroyed the cicadas with a parasite attacking their larvae, which themselves tackled the roots of sugar canes. Elsewhere, the same fight was undertaken to protect from other plantations. |
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Synopsis
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