Why Cicadas Power Spray Their Pee
Thirsty cicadas produce more powerful jets of urine than some mammals
Cyril Ruoso/Nature Picture Library/Alamy Stock Photo
As trillions of periodical cicadas emerge across the Midwestern and southern U. S. later this spring, they will generate plenty of buzz—each cicada can generate a sound as loud as a chainsaw. These red-eyed insects will also produce a prodigious amount of pee.
Cicadas consume copious amounts of watery plant fluid, which means that nature is constantly calling. But unlike most insects that flick away waste one droplet at a time, cicadas spray their pee out in high-speed streams reminiscent of the bathroom habits of mammals. According to a new paper published last week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, cicadas are able to pee well above their weight class and produce stronger streams than many mammals.
“In biology there are always exceptions, and the exception here is cicadas,” says lead study author Elio Challita, a postdoctoral researcher at Harvard University, who studies the fluid dynamics of invertebrates. “Instead of peeing in droplets, cicadas are some of the smallest insects that can generate these powerful jets.”
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The drone of cicadas might seem inescapable, but observing the arboreal insects relieving themselves takes luck. Challita and his co-author Saad Bhamla, a biomolecular engineer at the Georgia Institute of Technology, initially had to rely on YouTube videos. But while doing fieldwork in the Peruvian Amazon, they encountered several cicadas peeing from almond trees. They also observed a group of cicadas peeing from trees in Singapore. The researchers captured…
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