"Cicadas of Thailand" by Michel Boulard
Vol. 1
+ 1 audio CD with Cicadas' sounds


some photos are truly unique and amazing: like series of photos showing the whole process of Imagination (Imago hatching or emerging young winged specimen) !

there are plenty of hand drawings as well !

this is very nice interesting book with plenty of info interesting facts !

also it has enclosed Audio CD with 40 professionally made highest quality sound tracks of different Cicadas "tymbolizing" (not singing or stridulating as commonly misunderstood !); also there are "Acoustic ID cards" for each sound track - a diagram showing sound frequencies !

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Details about this book:

Author of this book Michel Boulard is Director of the Laboratory of Entomology at the Ecole Practique des Hautes Etudes (Sorbonne) and Head of the Department of Natural History in the Paris National Museum.

present books describes 74 species of Thai cicadas. 22 pages with color plates

Softbound (paperback), dimentions 150 x210 mm.
Published in January 2007
ISBN 9789744800800

This book 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 tymbolize. 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 ethnology, and exceptional or enigmatic aspects and behaviour. The text in enriched by drawings and photographs, mostly of living insects.

This book is not just another guide with check-list to identify species in your collection - it is an amazing and fantastic work equal only to encyclopedic knowledge!

First Part "Cicadas: Definitions and Characterictics" of this book explains following subjects:

1.1 Taxonomic Definition
1.2 Characteristics and Morphological Diversity
1.2.1 Size and Overall Conformation
1.2.2 Layout of Coloration and Habitus
1.3 Biological Features
1.3.1 How do Cicadas feed?
1.3.2 The Double life of Cicadas
1.3.3 Egg Hatching: The First birth
1.3.4 Morphological Characteristics of the Larvae
1.3.5 Behavior of Larvae
1.3.6 Imago Hatching: The Second birth
1.3.6.1 The Cicadan Pseudo-metamorphosis
1.3.6.2 Imagination: Birth through the Thorax by natural “Cesarian”
1.3.7 Special Morpho-anatomical characteristics of the adults
1.3.7.1 Visual Capability
1.3.7.2 Phonogenous Capabilities
1.3.7.2.1 Tymbalic Organ and the name of its sound production
1.3.7.2.2 Protective accessories of the Tymbalic Organ and their
Morphological derivatives
1.3.7.3 Auditory capability
1.4 Fundamental role and Enviromental impact of the Tymbalizations

Second Part "Thailand's Amazing Cicadas" among other thins mentions:

- How cicadas produce sound and all about it;
- Butterfly Cicadas and Bird Cicadas;
- Territorial claims;
- Cicadas' Homosexuality and Cheating death;

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There are also many other interesting and truly amazing facts, such as:

- Cicadas are neither beetles (although having such a big and sturdy bodies) nor butterflies (although winged too and often no less colorfull) but rather relatives of True bugs

- Cicadas are harmless for humans: they do not bite or sting, and neither are pests. Rather they have been eaten as food for many thousands of years and even used in medicine as in China.

- It takes few years for Cicadas to become as they are before they emerge from earth and transform from larvae from into winged and sound producing creatures? for some it is only 2-3 years, yet for few species as much as 13 or even 17 years!

- Cicadas do not sing (as birds) or chirp (as crickets or hoppers by rubbing their body parts - "stridulation") - they "tymbalize" or vibrate the membranes (similar to "cymbals") on their bellies, resonating and amplifying that sound, all that done without any electrically powered loudspeakers or other equipment ! "tymbal" is an alteration of "timbal" (= kettledrum), which in turn is likely alteration of Old French "timbale".

- Only male cicadas produce sound and it can be louder than 106 dB, earning the rightfull pretendents for being the loudest insects. some small species produce so high pitched sound that human ear can't even hear it.