It sounds like frying
Its song is a long sizzle. Its Japanese name, aburazemi, means oil cicada, because it sounds like food frying in oil.
A Japanese garden · Flies and true bugs
Large brown cicada
Graptopsaltria nigrofuscata
A stout, dark brown cicada with cloudy brown wings: most cicadas have clear ones.
- Size
- 5.5 to 6cm long, with wings
- Look for it
- July to September
- Where
- Trees in towns, gardens and woods across Japan, Korea and China
Whirrs after you, and clings on when it lands. Move your pointer and see.
When to look
Brown cicada
Good to know
Six things about the brown cicada
Wings you cannot see through
It is unusual among cicadas in having brown, opaque wings, which hide it well on bark.
Years underground
The young live in the soil for several years, feeding on sap from tree roots.
Shells on every tree
In summer the empty brown skins of the young are left clinging to trunks, fences and leaves everywhere.
At home in the city
It is as common in the middle of Tokyo as in the countryside.
A thermometer
The first one to sing each year makes the news, as a sign that the rainy season is over.
The real thing
Photos of the brown cicada
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Photos are from Wikimedia Commons, used under the free licences shown. They have been resized, and cropped where they appear in link previews.
How to spot one
Follow the noise to a tree trunk and look about head height. It sits still and is nearly the colour of the bark.
How to help
It needs trees and soil that is not sealed under concrete. City parks and street trees suit it well.
Keep going
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