Cicada soundscapes: which species, where and when?

Male cicadas have a pair of ribbed sound-producing plates, or tymbals, near the front of the abdomen. Muscle contraction and release deform and restore the plates, producing rapid sound pulses; the air-filled abdomen resonates to amplify them. The call does not come from rubbing the wings together. Rhythm, tone and repetition help identify a species, alongside body colour, wings and habitat.

Higurashi, Tanna japonensis, is associated with the kana-kana call and activity around dawn and dusk. Minminzemi, Hyalessa maculaticollis, is commonly represented by min-min-min. Kumazemi, Cryptotympana facialis, has calls represented as washi-washi for an individual or shaa-shaa in a chorus. These prompts refer to particular species and calling patterns.

First and last calls of a species differ between regions. One Environment Ministry survey grouped reports into fourteen areas and compared the progress of calling through cumulative report proportions. Minminzemi did not simply begin later at every more northerly location. Dates, locality and time of day give observations their meaning.

Nymphs underground

Females lay eggs in bark or dead twigs. Newly hatched nymphs enter the soil and feed on fluids from tree roots, growing through repeated moults without a pupal stage. Before the final moult, they emerge from the soil and climb a plant; the adult emerges and leaves its shed skin behind. Underground development varies by species and environment, rather than always lasting seven years.

Adult lifespan and urban surveys

Adults do not all survive for only a week either: Osaka museum material describes marked kumazemi confirmed to live for a month. Its 2007 exhibition also connected changes in the city’s mix of cicada species with urban habitats and environmental change.

Changing written calls

Written imitations of cicada calls have their own history. The Heian-period Kagero Diary renders tsukutsukuboshi as kutsukutsuboshi; the Muromachi dictionary Ikyoshu records tsukushiyoshi. Much later, Soseki’s I Am a Cat playfully asks which way round to hear the syllables: oshii-tsukutsuku or tsukutsuku-oshii. These are changes in how listeners represent sound, not evidence that the insect’s call itself changed between those periods.

Cicadas in Basho’s verse

Basho’s 1689 verse at Yamadera sets the cicada’s voice against stillness, describing it as seeping into the rock. The verse does not name a species. A 2009 Kyushu University exhibition discussed historical climate modelling that suggested niiniizemi as a possible identification.