Cicadas!

One Cicada

	The picture on the left was taken at 9:58 p.m. This is what he looked like as he crawled up the fence looking for a comfy spot. He didn't do much of anything until 10:17 (on the right), when he sort of hunched up his 'shoulders' and split open the back of his shell. (An entomologist would shudder at my word choices, maybe.)
	He worked his way out rather slowly; the picture on the left is from 10:25. Once he was mostly out of the shell, he started to spread out his wings (10:31).
	He hung out like this (10:35) -- at about a 90 degree angle from his shell -- for about 20 minutes. There wasn't much movement. On the left, you can see both sets of wings.
	As he was hanging there, not doing much of anything, his wings slowly unfurled (10:56).
	Eventually (at 10:57), he hoisted himself up and pulled entirely out of the shell.
	His wings started to dry a lot more quickly...
	These pictures are from 11:04. By now, I'm kind of attached to him and think he's pretty cute. I realize that it's very early in the emergence, and he's more likely to play a role in predator satiation than to produce more cicadas. I consider keeping him in a peanut butter jar until the birds are sick of cicadas.
	At 11 :28, he pulled his wings in close to his body. You might notice that his body looks a little darker, even through the wings.
	This part went pretty slowly, and he didn't move -- just slowly slowly slowly got darker and darker. The picture on the left was taken at 11:58; the picture on the right at 12:42. I was starting to get a little bored, but I found more cicadas -- in much prettier places -- while I was waiting for him to do something (anything). He's looking a little less cute now...
	At last! Some action! He finally crawled a way from his shell at 1:11. He only moved about an inch and a half, but that was pretty exciting after an hour and a half of tanning himself in the dark. Sadly, I suspect that he has already become bird poop - this location was pretty exposed and he was nowhere to be found this morning, although all of the others were still very close to their (better hidden) transformation spots.