Aristotle 384-322 BCE was a fan of eating pregnant cicadas.
Aristotle had a thing for cicadas. They were one of his go-to bugs in his description of animals in his History of Animals, and in Book V, Chapter 24 of that work, he shares his insights about which cicadas are the best to eat. Of cicadas, Aristotle writes:
The [cicada] maggot, when it is grown in the earth, becomes a tettigometra: these are sweetest before they have ruptured their covering. When first produced the males are the sweetest: after the sexual intercourse, the females are sweetest, for they contain white ova. [Aristotle, History of Animals, Book V, Chap 24, Translation by Richard Cresswell]
TEN FUN FACTS ABOUT THE CICADA
The obliging cicada provides a musical accompaniment before it serves as a very good lunch according to Aristotle.
There are periodical cicadas which emerge every 13 or 17 years, and there are annual cicadas, which emerge every two years or so and tend not to do so by the trillions (as the periodical ones are known to).
Of the periodical cicadas, there are 15 broods on record. They are numbered with Roman numerals.
Three broods spend 13 years underground and 12 spend 17 years underground. Brood X (that’s ten) is emerging this year. It’s a 17 year cycle brood.
Last time the cicadas emerged in 2004, Jenna Jadin, an American photojournalist, wrote a cicada cookbook, which is available online here. There are other cicada cookbooks available too. Let us know if you’d like to review one.
Only the males sing. The females remain quiet.
Adulthood for the cicada lasts only four to six weeks. After copulating, and laying eggs, the adults die. After hatching, the nymphs go underground where they nibble on roots until they’re ready to emerge many years later.
When the nymphs first emerge, they look for someplace to shed their skin. This can take about five hours. Aristotle preferred to eat the males before they shed their exoskeleton; he was also partial to pregnant females and their creamy eggs.
The cicada song, produced with a special organ called a tymbal, can reach 120 decibels, which is the lower end of the pain threshold.
Cicadas have five eyes! The rumours that they are blind are hogwash.
Cicadas are dutiful environmental stewards: the nymphs aerate the soil by burrowing down into it; the adult bodies feed insectivores; the carcasses provide nitrogen for the trees.
Read Aristotle on cicadas in History of Animals.
Listen to Mercedes Sosa “Como la cigarra”.