A
cicada is any of several
insects of the order
Homoptera with small eyes wide apart on the head, transparent well-veined wings, and loud noisemakers called "tymbals" on their sides. They modulate their noise by wiggling their abdomens toward and away from the tree that they are on. The best-known genus is
Magicicada[?], the so-called "seventeen-year locust" (not a locust at all; locusts belong to
Orthoptera). These cicadas spend thirteen or seventeen years in the ground, then emerge.
