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Sweating Cicadas

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Abstract

CICADAS are famous for their “music”-or perhaps one should say they are notorious for it. Their singing has been compared to a chain saw driven at high speed against naked iron, to the frantic thumping of a tin can, and to shrilly, trilling flutes. A single cicada can drive a person to distraction, but when hundreds or thousands chime in, as during an outbreak of the 13- or 17-year cicadas, the noise can become quite irritating. Indeed, the “chorus” of the cicadas is thought to repel their enemies, but in some species, as we will show, a thermoregulatory strategy—not a hammering clamor—is used against predators.

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© 1993 Bernd Heinrich

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Heinrich, B. (1993). Sweating Cicadas. In: The Hot-Blooded Insects. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-10340-1_13

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-10340-1_13

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-662-10342-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-662-10340-1

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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