Robot Claw

It’s a cicada year right now here in NY, which means we hear them during the day and see them around. Just the other day on a walk we found a green grocer sitting on a tree after just emerging from his shell. I like cicada’s; always have and always will. This is mostly due to growing up in Australia, where many of our summers seemed defined by the annual cicada season.

Compared to what I have seen in America, the cicada numbers in Australia were (are?) off the scale. Here you hear their sussurus from the trees enough to know they are there, but in the ‘worst’ of Australian seasons the noise was so loud you had to yell to be heard. I can remember one particular summer back when I was at St Josephs school in Charlestown, where we had a veritable plague of cicadas.

We used to catch them in those days, and keep them as sort-of pets. I recall them being strangely docile, and you could just walk up and take them off the trees. We’d walk around the playground with them sitting on the front of our shirts, or in our hair, and the more you had the better you were. I can remember teachers forbidding us from bringing them into the classroom, in which case we’d put them in our shirt pockets. If they sung, the sound was amazing up close. And even if the singing was from inside the classroom it wasn’t always because some child had snuck one in since they had a tendency to fly in windows or through doors themselves.

I recall taking shoeboxes to school and collecting them inside. Ideally we’d want one of every type, and we’d trade between each other. The secondary goal was the biggest or prettiest of each type, and bonus clout was awarded for having a excellently intact (or extra large) shell. I can recall keeping them in fishtanks at home, with wire on the top and branches inside. They never lived very long, but were so common during their season it was a matter of 10 minutes tops to get more.

I said to KLS during our walk the other day that were we in the Australian bush during a busy season, I could obtain for her a cicada in seconds, and I meant it. I was a fan that loved them dearly, and I was skilled at catching them.

Uniquely to Australian cicada fandom are the names. We had special names for all of them, and no true collector would get them confused.

The most common was the ‘black prince’. I’d say 70% or more of all cicadas were these guys. They could get very large as well; I’d say 4 inches or more. The biggest cicadas anyone ever caught were black princes. They were simple to spot: mostly black with wonderful red gemlike eyes.

< Black Prince

The second most common was the ‘brown baker’. Mostly brown, with some mottling on top. Nowadays these are more commonly known as ‘floury bakers’ (although maybe my name was a Newcastle thing). Apparently they have a particularly loud song.

< Brown Baker

The third most common (and one of the most beautiful) was the ‘green grocer’. Guess what – it’s all green! These guys got big as well…

< Green Grocer

I was a particular fan of the rarer types, such as the ‘yellow monday’. These are all different species incidentally, not variant colourations of the same species. These guys were tough to find, and you’d be lucky to find one or two a week. Highly valuable they were in the cicada trade!

Some of the variants were difficult to tell at a glance, and it would require a (10 year old) expert to differentiate. Always a boy mind you – girls hated cicadas! Two such variants are the ‘cherry nose’ and the ‘double drummer’.

The cherry nose looks just like a black prince albeit with a bright red nose:

< Cherry Nose

The double drummer on the other hand resembled a brown baker (or black prince, in bad light) but has subtle colour variations. The main difference though was it’s sound – it was louder and less rythmic than other cicadas. Sometimes you’d have to get them to sing (stroke their bellies) to identify them.

< Double Drummer

That image doesn’t look much like a brown baker I realize. I do recall however that double drummers strongly resembled another type.

There were others as well. Super-rarities, like red cicadas or blue ones (google ‘blue moon cicada’ for some amazing photos) or weird examples, like half-green half-yellow types. You’d see these maybe once a year if that, and it was always frustrating to see one but not be able to catch it!

The creative names are, as I have just learned, quite unique to Australia. Of the worlds 2000 types of cicada, 220 are found in Australia. And yet Australia has far, far more ‘common names’ for cicadas than any other country (most just call any type a ‘cicada’). Some of the most common names, such as black prince and green grocer, date back to the 19th century and are attributed to early Australia kids, who were apparently loving and collecting cicadas well over a hundred years before I ever did 🙂

I draw your attention here to this post, to show that even now when I visit Australia I keep my eyes out for these wonderful little guys.

Remember my sting of a couple of weeks ago? Well yesterday it happened again!

I was mowing the front lawn, as before, and mowed over a ground nest of yellow jackets. Almost instantly a large (many dozens) swarm of wasps engulfed the mower, as I hastily fled the area. I observed them from a distance for a few moments and then – foolishly I’ll concede – ‘hop-ran’ in to get the mower away from them. It was then I was stung again. I strongly believe I was actually stung twice, possibly by the same wasp, although a later  investigation seemed to show only one spot (there were definitely two yesterday).

The pain was as before, possibly even slightly higher, but as the day continued I was relieved that the swelling and irritation seemed less previously. During this time I went out and did my best to eradicate the nest with a hand held can of bug spray. I must have killed fifty or more of the suckers, mostly single-targeting them down. The chemical, whatever it is, is positively evil – a fine mist is enough to knock a wasp out of the air and kill it in seconds. I saturated the entrance of the nest as well, killing many wasps as they tried to flee. I was at my most alert during this extermination since I strongly didn’t want to be stung again. Happily, I succeeded without further incident.

By the evening, although I could still feel the burn of the sting, it wasn’t all encompassing and I was mostly able to ignore it. Furthermore, the swelling had mostly subsided. However when we went to bed the pain began to return and soon became difficult to ignore. I had trouble getting to sleep, and going back to sleep when I woke a few times during the night.

This morning I felt dizzy and nauseous, and noticed pronounced swelling at the point of the sting. I called my doctor who said I had to come see him as soon as possible. By the time I arrived at my doctor the swelling – on the right side of my left calf – was as big as my outstretched hand, very pink, hard and warm to the touch. It turns out I had an allergic reaction. Very likely the first sting sensitized my body to the wasp venom, making the second sting much more potent.

I have been prescribed steroids for five days and have been given 2 Epi-Pens to use in case I get stung again. Disturbingly, the suggestion is I may have to keep these things handy forever since now I’ve had a reaction to the venom the risk of anaphylactic shock. I’m trying not to think about the reality of that right now.

Very few people develop allergies like this (less than 2% according to the doctor) so I’m simply unlucky. That said, my doctor says I was lucky the reaction wasn’t more serious. Because of my sensitivity I now have to avoid yellow jackets and bees, especially for the next few weeks.

Somewhere, the ghost of a wasp is enjoying his Pyrrhic victory.