periodical cicadas

[studiocham]

This is for melleri keepers, not for the feeders/nutrition forum. The summer that Grace laid the successful clutch, she and Ferris ate a ton of periodical cicadas. My yard/pasture/woods had its cycle that year. They may have the perfect balance of A everyone needs, who knows? I know something worked for her that year, and she'd never eaten them before.

They look like:
http://photos22.flickr.com/28500315_4e2aa3a5c1_o.jpg

I was visiting family this weekend and found their cicadas in full swing. Why they were out of sync with the rest of our county, I don't know. I was given a mason jar (score!) and ran around swatting gravid females out of the air, plucking them off tree trunks. These things are like gold if you keep melleri. If you hear the singing, go out and get them! They only last about 24 hours, the adults do not feed, and they are perfectly harmless. Do not let mammal pets eat them, and don't feed out dead ones. The cycle in one location may last a week or more, just collect fresh ones daily. A large adult can eat 3 a day and be content. They may want to eat more, but that's a lot of chitin to ingest in one sitting.

Melleri react to the vibrations the cicadas make. Mine will whip their heads around as soon as one calls. They must eat some kind of cicada in the wild, because they stalk, shoot, and chew these things like nothing else. I shot vids of some of my chams reacting to and relishing cicadas, complete with the gory sounds. It may take me a while to get them uploaded because I don't have tech skills.

 

[Tygerr]

They must eat some kind of cicada in the wild

I'm pretty sure they do. There are many species of cicada living in Madagascar and other parts of Africa. And unlike the 17-yr periodic ones that you referred to, most of these re-appear every summer (although the nymphs can take a decade to mature, there are new batches of them maturing every spring). I'm sure that they must be a staple diet for chams in these regions.

This is interesting:
"There is anecdotal evidence that chameleons congregate in areas where insects appear only at certain times of the year, such as when insects are attracted to coffee blooming or when cicadas hatch. When these food supplies are no longer present, the chameleons disperse."
(http://www.answers.com/topic/chameleons-chamaeleonidae-biological-family)

The cicadas can be quite a nuisance though. When I was holiday in the Lowveld region of South Africa during december, their shrill call is constant and almost deafening...

Brad Ramsey posted a link to a video on YouTube a while back about those periodic cicadas. It was quite fascinating. The vid seems to have been removed from YouTube, but I think this is it: http://www.bio.indiana.edu/~hangarterlab/broodx/broodxmovies/NSFmovie.htm

 

[studiocham]

I'm pretty sure they do. There are many species of cicada living in Madagascar and other parts of Africa. And unlike the 17-yr periodic ones that you referred to, most of these re-appear every summer (although the nymphs can take a decade to mature, there are new batches of them maturing every spring). I'm sure that they must be a staple diet for chams in these regions.

Despite one source online, the region I reside in has not just Periodical (13- and 17-year brood cycles) Cicadas, but also Putnam's and the Dogday Harvestfly. The last two can have annual broods. The sheer numbers of Periodical emergences are the only reason why people on the ground can catch live, fresh cicadas. The other species I can only get after they have dropped to die, they are much more cautious of potential predators.

The cicadas can be quite a nuisance though. When I was holiday in the Lowveld region of South Africa during december, their shrill call is constant and almost deafening...

I love the sound. A lot of movies use it for atmosphere, as if they were scary. What I don't love is stepping outdoors, talking to friends, and errant cicadas flying into your mouth or hitching rides on various bits of you. Periodicals emerge in such huge numbers, they don't need to be wily like the annuals.

I'm out of cicadas today, making another trip across town for more. The melleri demand it.