‘Green grocers’ spruiking for love

THAT overwhelming racket in Geelong’s back yards is the passion plea of a lovelorn green grocer.
A green grocer cicada, that is.
The strange-looking creatures, like something from a 1950s Japanese sci-fi flick, are emerging from a subterranean existence of up to seven long years in gardens and yards right across Geelong.
They’ve been sucking on the sap of plant roots to survive, maturing and waiting for the right combination of heat and rain to breach the surface.
And right now they’re ready to go forth and multiply.
But the noise – more than 120 decibels, in fact. That’s about the same as a jet taking off.
Membranes contract at the base of cicadas’ abdomen, buckling and producing their shrill, patent blast.
All in the time-worn cause of attracting a mate.
“They emerge from their underground tunnels about this time year, usually in the first hot days prior to summer, in late spring,’’ naturalist Trevor Pescott explained.
“The male calls the female, she lays her eggs in bark on a tree and as soon as they hatch the larvae drop into the ground.”
Mr Pescott likened the noise to “a fuel tank popping” at high frequency.
Cicadas can live up to a couple of months once above ground but most are here for a good time, not a long time. They’re lucky to last four weeks.