Cicada Metamorphosis

Back in early December we had about half a dozen cicadas emerge from the soil of our tiny inner-city back garden, they left their old skins all over the place. One did its metamorphosis just by the back door and I got to take lots of photos. A Greengrocer or Cyclochila australasiae - one of the loudest insects in the world they spend 7yrs underground eating the roots of plants (which plants in my garden had all those grubs been munching on?) before they emerge and metamorphose as gorgeous big loud bugs that fly about, mate, reproduce and then die after only 6 weeks ! As I didn't get to blog all this until now - 4 wks later - this cicada should be on his/her old age pension by now.

Here is the metamorphosis:
10.35 : 07 am when I first saw this amazing thing happening he was hanging almost completely upside down10.35 : 50 am
10.37 05 am a side view 10.41 07 am wings are expanding - he was swinging his body slowly up & down, pulsing the wings and making wild little leg kicks
10.44 00 am wings are growing
10.44 44 am you can see those side flanges either side of the thorax - makes him look like a frog with wings
10.46 09 what hard work metamorphosis is - 10.47 03 looking like a little dragon now10.47 32 - got a firm grip on his old shell now and struggling to free his abdomen ... almost out
10.48 07 Done It - completely out of his shell. No more of that dirty old grub existence now!
10.48 18 am straightened abdomen
10.49 21 am - wings are getting stronger looking but still a bit crinkly. He is still doing those crazy side kicks with the hind legs which are getting greener and more muscular
10.54 59 - and look at those wings now
11. 03 00 am - a side view11.03 53 am and the last photo I managed to take. Camera battery was completely flat by then. But Cicada basically sat and rested for about 40 minutes and the next time I looked he was gone.