The periodical cicadas that are about to infest two parts of the United States aren’t just plentiful, they’re downright weird. For instance, they have pumps in their heads that pull moisture from the roots of trees, allowing them to feed for more than a decade underground. They are rescuers of caterpillars, and, they are the strongest urinators in the animal kingdom with flows that put humans and elephants to shame. Wait, what? A study revealed that cicadas produce a urine stream three times stronger and faster than elephants and humans. Apparently they have a muscle that pushes the waste through a tiny hole like a jet engine. When thousand of them are in a tree, and you are under the tree, liquid flows down like a heavy rain. University of Connecticut Entomologist John Cooley, who conducted the study, calls it, cicada rain:
No, no, no…cicada rain, get it right.
Oh, and as far as saving caterpillars, in the years after a cicada outcoming, caterpillars, that turn into moths and butterflies, survived the spring in bigger numbers because the birds were eating the cicadas instead.
