How to raise golden cicada artificially

When it comes to golden cicadas, we will think of an idiom "golden cicadas shed their shells", which means to use tricks to get away, so that people can not find out in time. This shows that golden cicadas are very cunning and intelligent insects. In fact, this understanding of the Golden Cicada is still far from enough. In many places, Golden Cicada is a very delicious dish.

How to breed golden cicadas

Grasshopper is a representative species of Cicada insects, adults also known as black cicadas, nymph commonly known as the turtle, many areas of our country have the custom of eating grasshopper and its nymph, especially in Shandong, the most common way of eating is "fried golden cicada." Cicada nymph (Cicada tortoises) has a very high nutritional value and unique taste of medicated food, which can be regarded as the best among edible insects. At present, it has become a famous dish suitable for various occasions. However, due to environmental destruction and felling of trees, the living environment of grasshoppers and nymph (cicada turtle) has been seriously damaged, resulting in a sharp decline in the natural yield of nymph (cicada turtle) year by year, and the market price has also risen year after year and remained high. Due to the increasing demand of society, only by * collection, far from meeting market requirements, under our guidance, many places have begun to turn the way of natural resource collection to artificial scale breeding.

Morphological Characteristics of Cicada

Adult body length 40 - 48 mm, wing span 125 mm. All black, shiny, metallic. Compound eyes are reddish brown. The center of the front edge of the head and the upper cheek each have a piece of brown stain. The chest back plate is broad, and the center has a yellow-brown "X"-shaped bulge. The wings are transparent. Front wing anterior margin fawn, base black, subanterior margin cell black, front wing base 1/3 black, wing basal cell black, with a yellowish brown spot; hind wing base 2/5 black, wing veins yellowish and dark black. Feet pale brown. The male abdomen first, second section has the vocal organ, the female does not have the vocal organ, has the auditory organ, the abdominal valve is very undeveloped, the ovipositor is remarkable and developed. Eggs oblong, slightly curved; ca. 2.5 mm long, 0.5 mm wide; milky white, glossy. The nymph is yellow-brown, with wing buds, can crawl, and the forefoot of the first instar is obviously excavated; the last instar nymph is 35 mm long, yellow-brown, forefoot excavated, and wing buds are very developed.

Economic Resource Value of Golden Cicada

Food value of grasshoppers. According to scientific analysis, grasshopper is rich in amino acids, proteins and trace elements, and essential amino acids account for 46.63% of the total amino acids. Cicada has medicinal function besides edible value. When the mature nymph of grasshopper changes into adult, the shell removed from eclosion is called cicada shell, also known as cicada retreat or cicada skin. Its main components contain chitin and protein, which tastes sweet, salty and cold, enters lung and liver meridians, and is an important pungent and cool Chinese medicine. Fresh grasshopper larvae and adults, especially the nymph is not only rich in nutrition, delicious taste, medicinal value is also particularly high, for the top grade of medicated food.

Natural Habits of Cicada

Cicada grasshoppers usually complete one generation in 3 - 5 years, but there are also records of completing one generation in 5 - 6 years or 12 - 13 years. The eggs overwinter on the young branches of one year or two years old and on the roots of plants in soil, i.e. there are two kinds of overwintering insects, eggs and different sizes of nymph, and overwintering places are also divided into two kinds of environments: aboveground and underground.

Overwintering eggs begin to hatch in the middle of May of the following year, and the peak period of incubation is from late May to early June, and the incubation activity ends in late June. Eggs hatch mostly in the afternoon during the day, accounting for about 80%, and less at night, about 20%. The egg stage is approximately 300 days. The activity of overwintering nymph was influenced by soil temperature and sap of host plant. When the temperature was higher than 10℃~15℃, sap began to flow, and overwintering nymph began to prick and feed.

The nymph hatched from the overwintering egg (called cicada ant) dives into the soil and sucks the sap at the root of the host plant. It is less active. With the growth of age, build different sizes and shapes of soil chambers, dwelling in them. The soil chamber is rough in appearance, smooth and moist in inside, and part of the wall adheres to the roots of plants for feeding. When the temperature drops after autumn, it will drill into the deep soil layer for winter, and after spring warm, it will migrate upward to the vicinity of tree roots. The number of nymph in soil is the highest in May, when a large number of overwintering eggs hatch into soil and the last instar nymph is about to emerge and molt into adult.

After completing the whole life process of the nymph in the soil, the mature nymph burrows out from the soil from late May to late August, crawls to the branches of shrubs and stems of weeds, fixes on the branches and leaves of bark with claws and thorns of forefeet, molts and emerges into adults. The peak of adult emergence is from mid-June to mid-July, and the end is in early October. About 20 days after adult emergence, mating and laying eggs begin in late June, the peak period of adult laying is from late June to late August, and from early September to early October.

Adults emerge at 8~10 o'clock at night and 4~6 o'clock in the morning, and the ratio of female to male is basically 1∶1. Adults often inhabit tree branches and have the habit of fighting fires at night. Adults lay eggs in one or two years old, 2~7 mm thick branches, eggs laid in the xylem of the branch tip, egg nest closely connected, mostly single row, also have double row, was arranged in a straight line, a few curved or spiral arrangement. There are 6~8 eggs in each egg nest, 12~479 eggs in one spawning branch, 20~200 eggs in general, and 146 eggs in average. There are 6~146 egg holes on each branch. Each female has more than 500 - 1000 eggs in her abdomen, with a maximum of 1500 eggs and a minimum of 20 eggs, with an average of 800 eggs. The adult life span is about 3 months, and the occurrence period is generally from July to September every year. Adults have wings and can fly. They live by sucking the nutrient juice from the young branches of trees with piercing mouthparts. After mating, female cicadas insert ovipositor into xylem of annual or biennial tender branches before laying eggs, and then lay eggs. At the same time, it makes the twigs dry and die, causing harm to the trees.

Cicadas like soft wood, juice more tree species, such as hawthorn, peach, apple, elm and so on.

In fact, the value of cicadas in the past may not know a lot, only know that every year in summer, there are always annoying cicadas on the trees, especially at noon nap time, the surrounding area is particularly quiet, only the cicadas in the trees constantly chirping. With the increasing knowledge of people, the value of cicadas has gradually been discovered by more people.