Eastern scissors grinder cicada
The eastern scissors grinder is a big cicada that sings high up in the trees. Its loud buzzing song goes up and down, a bit like someone sharpening scissors. You can hear it on warm summer evenings.
How fast is it?
Fun facts
Only the males sing. One song lasts about twenty seconds and then slowly fades into a soft, low buzz.
It likes to sing from the top branches of trees, most of all at dusk.
It is an annual cicada, which means new grown-ups come out of the ground every year, mostly in late summer.
Two cousin cicadas sing almost the same song, so scientists often tell them apart by where they live.
Most asked questions about Eastern scissors grinder cicada
?Is the scissors grinder cicada dangerous?
No. It cannot sting and it does not bite people. It is only loud.
?When can you hear the scissors grinder cicada?
From June to September, most of all in September, often at dusk.
?Why is it called a scissors grinder?
Its buzzing, pulsing song sounds a bit like scissors being sharpened on a grinding wheel.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Neotibicen winnemanna
- Group
- True bugs and cicadas
- Family
- Cicadidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Hemiptera > Cicadidae
- Lives on
- North America
- Also known as
- Eastern scissor grinder
Where the facts come from
- Neotibicen winnemanna (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
- Picture by Ken Kneidel. CC0, Wikimedia Commons. The sticker of this bug is drawn from this picture.
If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.
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