What IS that noise? If you are outside on a summer night, and a loud buzzing, rasping, waving sound fills the air, it might just be cicadas. These strange, big, red-eyed, glassy-winged insects are the loudest bugs around, and have one of the most unusual life stories. Some species live underground for 17 years, sleeping and munching on the roots of trees. Then they all come up at once for a huge noisy molting and mating party, making a big mess in the trees, and providing a nice feast for owls! Other cicada families stay underground for 2, 5, 13, or 17 years—no one knows why, or how they all know when it’s time to come up. And why do they like prime numbers? If you have some singing to you or leaving their exoskeletons on your trees, you can read this book to get to know them better, and puzzle over their many mysteries.

Cicado! (http://www.cicado.com/) is a fan site for cicadas. On this site you can find more pictures of cicadas, answers to your cicada questions, and hear recordings of their songs—even cicada recipes if they annoy you so much you want to eat one.
You can also hear cicadas at the University of Michigan cicada site, http://insects.ummz.lsa.umich.edu/fauna/michigan_cicadas.