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Sticker of Peaceful cicada
Bug card No. 3273 of 4,939

Peaceful cicada

Chremistica ochracea
Eats: PlantsTrue bugs and cicadasForests and woods6 legs

The peaceful cicada is a green cicada with thin, see-through wings like glass. It is very common in China and Taiwan. On summer evenings the males sing together in a big buzzing choir.

Lives in
China, Taiwan, Japan, India and Malaysia, in plantations and patchy forests
Length
2.4 to 3.1 cm (0.96 to 1.2 in)
males are a little bigger than females
Top speed
about 11 km/h (6.8 mph)
Flying, estimate
Can it hurt you?
Harmless
Harmless. It does not bite or sting, it only makes a lot of noise.
What does it eat?
Like other cicadas, it drinks sap from trees and plants. It is not fussy about which plants it uses.
For real!Photo of Peaceful cicada
Picture by LiCheng Shih. CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

How big is it?

How long is it?

Peaceful cicada about 3.1 cm long (1.2 in)A grain of rice about 6 mm (0.24 in)A toy building brick about 3.2 cm (1.3 in)A crayon about 9 cm (3.5 in)
as long as 5 grains of rice in a rowcould fly across a whole football pitch in 34 secondsmoves 99 times its own body length every second

How big is Peaceful cicada compared to YOU?

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How fast is it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

1

One male starts singing, the males nearby join in, and then they all stop at the same moment.

2

Only the grown-up males make the buzzing song.

3

After a rainy season you can find lots of its empty skins stuck on tree bark.

4

At night it is drawn to lights, just like moths.

5

Scientists use cicadas like it to study how city noise affects wild animals.

you asked

Most asked questions about Peaceful cicada

?Why do cicadas buzz?

The males buzz to call females. The peaceful cicada sings together in a chorus, mostly in the evening.

?Is the peaceful cicada dangerous?

No. It is harmless and does not bite or sting.

For bug experts

Scientific name
Chremistica ochracea
Named by
Walker, 1850
Group
True bugs and cicadas
Family
Cicadidae
Classification
Insecta > Hemiptera > Cicadidae
Lives on
Asia
Also known as
Thin winged cicada

Where the facts come from

  1. Chremistica ochracea (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
  2. Picture by LiCheng Shih. CC BY 2.0, 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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