From the archive record
Viewer Mittal Gala tells us that "Cicadas feed on fluids of the tree. The sugary-rich liquid which is excreted from their body is called honey dew. When many cicadas congregate, the honey dew that they produce is sometimes called cicada rain." Can anyone explain this behaviour to us...? Why are these Cicadas (sitting on a sub-Himalayan Cassia fistula or amaltash tree) spraying sap in the air after apparently boring it out of the branch of the Amaltash tree they're sitting on. Or have we missed the point? What exactly is happening here? A cicada, including the 17-year locust, is an insect of the order Hemiptera, suborder Auchenorrhyncha (which was formerly included in the now invalid suborder Homoptera), in the superfamily Cicadoidea, with large eyes wide apart on the head and usually trans