Psst, did you hear the one...

...a Cicada walks into a bar...

So, the story is...last summer was quite the cicada hatching in the midwest. So much so that there was a big story out of Columbia, MO, about their cicada ice cream. I happened to go to Missouri in the middle of this craziness of bugs buzzing, and was fascinated (we don't have cicadas here). Brian decided that it would be an awesome prank to make some cicada baked goods, so we gathered up some bits and took them home with us. There they have sat. Until I realized they were perfect macro practice subjects. That is, as long as I could get them to "stand up" without breaking off a leg or two.

For those of you that don't know, on the left we have a sloughed off exoskeleton of a juvenile cicada. Cicada nymphs crawl up out of the ground every so often (this was a 13 year brood), and up onto tree branches and hold on upside down and pop out of the exoskeleton's back thorax part, then hang down to dry and grow their wings to fly and mate for a day before they die and all is quiet from that family for another 13 years. On the right is an adult cicada.

*note, no cicadas were harmed in this endeavor, they had already passed before they were gathered. Of course, the exoskeletons are empty :)