Introduction
In the vast sub-mountainous forests of continental tropical Asia extending between India and Tonkin, silence is not the master either by day or night. A multitude of sounds mingle and cut through the huge natural entities that play a vital role in protecting much terrestrial life and its diversity. What is most striking and astonish-ing as one passes through these forests is the profusion of acoustic events filling them with life. In all the inter-tropical forests, this sonic universe consists, in addition to wind-made vibrations causing twigs and foliage to tremble and rustle, of four main groups of animals, at different levels and more or less distant from one another: (1) anuran amphibians (frogs and toads), (2) birds, (3) Orthoptera (crickets, grasshoppers, and locusts), (4) and cicadas. The last entomic family, the principal family of Homoptera, was for many years neglected doubtless because approaching them is often difficult and even discouraging. Cicadas are numbered among those insects that one "hears but never sees" as the saying goes. Of all the species I have been able to approach during an already long career dedicated mainly to the study of the world's cicadas, those featured in these pages count among the most remarkable. Particularly in continental tropical Asia cicadas demonstrate their predominance, first, by the volume and the musicality of the sounds they produce. Continental tropical Asian cicadas also show greater variation in size than elsewhere, including in their midst the largest as well as some of the smallest cicadas in the world. Finally, the cicadas of this region, and more particularly in Thailand, display in their wings colours that are only outshone by aphonic butterflies. The opportunity of spending time following the numerous cicadas in the more or less mountainous Thai forests allows me, in a volume dedicated to the beauty and the surprising life history of this poorly known animal kingdom, to discuss new elements of larval and imaginal biology as well as, and perhaps especially, the surprising phonogenous capability appropriate to these large insects. Pragmatically, their music is above all dedicated to the meeting of the sexes, and some will use the opportunity to listen to and to show spectacularly the acoustic differences that exist between pre- and pro-mating demonstrations. This first volume work offers an introduction to the exceptional and still little known world of cicadas that is both visual, by means of photographs and drawings accompanying the text, and aural with the inclusion of a compact disc. The reader is guided through this magical world by a specialist in cicadas by profession and a wildlife photographer by passion, who, aided by his photographs and sound record-ings on CD reveals fascinating glimpses of creatures that he has no hesitation in describing as truly amazing. First, however, a clear, in-depth, and rigorous exposition of the nature of cicadas is offered, pausing on the way to give accurate labels to the sounds they produce. In point of fact, they are neither "songs" nor stridulations. On the World Wide Web and sometimes elsewhere the treatment of cicadas is disastrous: very often, any old rubbish will do. On the way I return briefly to some fundamental concepts relating to the transition to grown-up or imaginal life of cicadas, an event traditionally, but somewhat inaccurately, termed metamorphosis.
About The Author
Michel Boulard is Director of the Laboratory of Entomol-ogy at the École Pratique des Hautes Études (Sorbonne) and Head of the Department of Natural History in the Paris National Museum. An enthusiastic naturalist, he has dedicated himself to the study of various insect families, particularly the Cicadidae. He has also done original work on Membracidae, Odonates, animal metamorphosis, and has a book on animal mimicry forthcoming.
About The Book
The Cicadas of Thailand: General and Particular Characteristics is the first of two volumes on Thai cicadas, the most fascinating and also least known representatives of a family of sonorous insects. Cicadas neither sing, nor stridulate, but tymbalize. The volume reveals the existence and the double life, larval and imaginal, of cicadas encountered during six years of research in Thailand's sub-mountainous forests. The body of the text includes two chapters discussing general characteristics, acoustic and procreative ethology, and exceptional or enigmatic aspects and behaviour. The text is enriched by drawings and photographs, mostly of living insects. It is accompanied by a CD comprising forty cicada sound productions (or tymbalizations), the acoustics made visual in ID and ethological cards, which form an original feature of this pioneering study.
Hindu (932)
Agriculture (123)
Ancient (1103)
Archaeology (794)
Architecture (563)
Art & Culture (923)
Biography (728)
Buddhist (549)
Cookery (166)
Emperor & Queen (576)
Islam (246)
Jainism (322)
Literary (891)
Mahatma Gandhi (387)
Send as free online greeting card
Email a Friend
Visual Search
Manage Wishlist