Watch a Swamp Cicada shed its skin

Here’s a video I made this week. It is a Neotibicen tibicen tibicen (formerly Tibicen chloromera) shedding its skin as it enters the final phase of its development. The video is in 4K HD, but you have to fuss with the YouTube interface to see it at that resolution (good luck). Each frame represents a 30 sec time span.

Spoilers:

At 18 seconds its head pops out of its old skin.

At 27 seconds it frees its wings.

At 51 seconds it flips and unfurls its wings.

At 85 seconds it moves its wings into place.

At 100 seconds you can see pigment pulse through the cicadas mesonotum:

Here’s another video from last night: