The Christmas Bug – nature’s magnificent flying machine

By Dr Anina Lee

My childhood memories of Christmas holidays on the Cape south coast always recall the happy sound of the Cape Turtle Dove and the shrill song of cicadas in the midday heat. In the southern hemisphere, where Christmas falls at the height of summer, cicadas are known to us as Christmas Beetles or Sonbesies. They are indeed besies or bugs (Hemiptera family) and not beetles. So they should rightly be called ‘Christmas Bugs’.

Cicadas are found on every continent in the world, except for Antarctica, because cicadas don’t like the cold. There are about 150 species of cicada in South Africa.

When I started writing this article it occurred to me that I had not heard cicadas for some years. When I mentioned this fact to my son he was astounded. “What do you mean you haven’t heard them? They are splitting my ears right now.” I had not realised that my ageing ears could no longer hear their screech in the 0.5 to 25 kilohertz range.

The song of the cicada

Only male cicadas sing, and only those belonging to the group of cicadomorpha can produce sounds that are audible to humans. Cicada sounds have been recorded up to 120 decibels, which is close to the level of jet planes and can damage human hearing. Unlike similar insects, such as crickets, the male cicada does not use stridulation (the rubbing together of body parts) to make their loud sound.

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