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108-519: It is best known as the place in fairytale where Urashima Tarō was invited after saving a turtle, where he was entertained by the Dragon God's princess Oto-hime and his minions, but when Urashima returned back to land after what he thought was a few days away, centuries had passed. Ryūgū or Ryūgū-jō is the fabulous mythical residence of the Ryūjin (Dragon God) or Sea God, or the princess Otohime . It

216-411: A crane and flies up to the sky. In another, he grows gills and leaps into the sea, whereby he regains his youth. In another version Urashima ate a magic pill that gave him the ability to breathe underwater. In another version, he is swept away by a storm before he can rescue the turtle. In another version, Irashima does stay with Otohime and they conceive a child. [1] The full name Urashima Tarō

324-514: A composite consisting of older traditions from the Nihon Shoki and Man'yōshū , combined with the near-modern Otogizōshi storybook plot, Chamberlain preferring to incorporate details from the ancient texts, while eschewing embellishment from the Otogizōshi. Chamberlain has also published a versified version of the tale. In Chamberlain's fairytale version, "Urashima" (not "Tarō") catches

432-417: A given species, and a number of resources exist to collect and analyse cicada sounds. In some species of cicadas, the males remain in one location and call to attract females. Sometimes, several males aggregate and call in chorus. In other species, the males move from place to place, usually with quieter calls, while searching for females. The Tettigarctidae differ from other cicadas in producing vibrations in

540-731: A long time, but in the particular case of the Urashima legend, its Dragon Palace was not firmly considered to be underwater until quite late in the modern period. In most familiar versions of the Urashima legend nowadays in Japan, the Ryūgū lies undersea, but in early and otogizoshi versions , the fisherman traveled to Hōrai ( Mount Penglai , the Elysium in Chinese tradition), a floating island. During

648-410: A man called Urashima Tarō. They answer that they had heard someone of that name had vanished at sea long ago. He discovers that 300 years have passed since the day he left for the bottom of the sea. Struck by grief, he absent-mindedly opens the box the princess had given him, from which bursts forth a cloud of white smoke. He is suddenly aged, his beard long and white, and his back bent. From the sea comes

756-407: A mock-up. Ryūgū Shrine derives its name from Ryūgū-jō. Located on Cape Nagasakibana (also known as Cape Ryūgū) in southern Kagoshima , it is said to be where Urashima Tarō traveled to Ryūgū-jō. Locals honor Ryūjin and turtles as protectors. Urashima Tar%C5%8D Urashima Tarō ( 浦島 太郎 ) is the protagonist of a Japanese fairy tale ( otogi banashi ), who, in a typical modern version,

864-420: A mysterious box called tamatebako whose lid he was told never to open. When Tarō returned to his hometown, everything had changed. His home was gone, his mother and father had perished, and the people he knew were nowhere to be seen. After not remembering the princess's warning, he lifted the lid of the box. A cloud of white smoke arose, turning him to a white-haired old man. The story remained as one of

972-418: A number of distinct "broods" that go through either a 17-year (Brood XIII), or in some parts of the region, a 13-year (Brood XIX) life cycle The long life cycles may have developed as a response to predators , such as the cicada killer wasp and praying mantis . A specialist predator with a shorter life cycle of at least two years could not reliably prey upon the cicadas; for example, a 17-year cicada with

1080-587: A predator approaches. A loud cicada song, especially in chorus, has been asserted to repel predators, but observations of predator responses refute the claim. Cicadas have been featured in literature since the time of Homer's Iliad , and as motifs in decorative art from the Chinese Shang dynasty (1766–1122 BCE). They are described by Aristotle in his History of Animals and by Pliny the Elder in his Natural History ; their mechanism of sound production

1188-497: A predator with a five-year life cycle will only be threatened by a peak predator population every 85 (5 × 17) years, while a non-prime cycle such as 15 would be endangered at every year of emergence. An alternate hypothesis is that these long life cycles evolved during the ice ages so as to overcome cold spells, and that as species co-emerged and hybridized, they left distinct species that did not hybridize having periods matching prime numbers . The 13- and 17-year cicadas only emerge in

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1296-493: A summer day; roughly a 24-hour cycle . Most cicadas are diurnal in their calling and depend on external heat to warm them up, while a few are capable of raising their temperatures using muscle action and some species are known to call at dusk. Kanakia gigas and Froggattoides typicus are among the few that are known to be truly nocturnal and there may be other nocturnal species living in tropical forests. Cicadas call from varying heights on trees. Where multiple species occur,

1404-562: A tortoise ( sic ) while fishing on his boat, and releases it. The tortoise reappears in her true form as the Sea-God's daughter, and invites him to the Dragon Palace. There the couple are married and live happily for 3 years, but Urashima misses seeing his parents and his brothers. The Dragon Princess reluctantly allows him to leave, giving him a box he is instructed never to open, for it will cause him never to be able to return to

1512-592: A turtle caught by others, 2) Boat arrives to convey him to Horai , 3) The four seasons assuage rather than provoke his homesickness, 4) The villagers in recognition of his longevity give him proper cremation , 5) Smoke from the tamatebako reaches Horai and Princess Otohime is grief-stricken. The tale of "Urashima Taro" in Keigo Seki 's anthology (translated into English 1963), was a version told in Nakatado District, Kagawa . In this variant, Urashima

1620-469: A variety of species by imitating the timed click replies of sexually receptive female cicadas, which respond in pair formation by flicking their wings. Their prime-number life cycle prevents predators with a life cycle of two or more years from synchronising with their emergence. Several fungal diseases infect and kill adult cicadas, while other fungi in the genera Ophiocordyceps and Isaria attack nymphs. Massospora cicadina specifically attacks

1728-668: A velocity of up to 3 meters per second, making them the fastest among all assessed animals, including mammals like elephants and horses. Cicadas, unlike other Auchenorrhyncha, are not adapted for jumping (saltation). They have the usual insect modes of locomotion , walking and flight, but they do not walk or run well, and take to the wing to travel distances greater than a few centimetres. Cicadas are commonly eaten by birds and mammals, as well as bats , wasps , mantises , spiders , and robber flies . In times of mass emergence of cicadas, various amphibians, fish, reptiles, mammals, and birds change their foraging habits so as to benefit from

1836-521: A version from the Otogizōshi . The four seasons also figure in F. Hadland Davis 's synopsis (1912). The usual bird which sings in spring is the bush warbler , not actually a nightingale. More precise translations from the otogizōshi text are given elsewhere. Whether in the ancient (Nara Period), feudal period or standard modern versions of Urashima , he believes he has spent 3 years at the otherworld or Dragon Palace, but more than 300 years had elapsed in

1944-506: Is a fisherman rewarded for rescuing a sea turtle , and carried on its back to the Dragon Palace ( Ryūgū-jō ) beneath the sea. There, he is entertained by the princess Otohime as a reward. He spends what he believes to be several days with the princess. But when he returns to his home village, he discovers he has been gone for at least 100 years. When he opens the forbidden jewelled box ( tamatebako ), given to him by Otohime on his departure, he turns into an old man. The tale originates from

2052-551: Is a sunken city or not. The akahon illustrations were appropriated by Masayuki Kataoka's English translation (1886), which describes the Dragon Palace as visible "far below" the water, to which the man carried by the reptile "descended". Ryūgū was described as a "Dragon Palace beyond the blue sea", in Basil Hall Chamberlain 's translation (1886). Here the "Dragon Palace" is illustrated as a complex of buildings atop an island, with fishes clad in kimono walking about

2160-599: Is also equated with the " fish-scale palace " ( iroko no goto tsukureru miya ) which was the Sea God Watatsumi 's palace mentioned in the Kojiki (8th century). The Ryūgū is well-known as the supernatural place in the fisherman's fairytale Urashima Tarō , and most Japanese now consider it to be a place which is supposed to lie under the sea. Actually, Ryūgū that appears in other narratives and fairytales ( otogi banashi ) had been considered to be underwater for

2268-561: Is among the loudest insects in the world. More than 40 species from five genera populate New Zealand, ranging from sea level to mountain tops, and all are endemic to New Zealand and its surrounding islands ( Kermadec Islands , Chatham Islands ). One species is found on Norfolk Island, which technically is part of Australia. The closest relatives of the NZ cicadas live in New Caledonia and Australia. Fossil Cicadomorpha first appeared in

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2376-745: Is divided into two families, the Tettigarctidae , with two species in Australia, and the Cicadidae , with more than 3,000 species described from around the world; many species remain undescribed. Nearly all of cicada species are annual cicadas with the exception of the few North American periodical cicada species, genus  Magicicada , which in a given region emerge en masse every 13 or 17 years. Cicadas have prominent eyes set wide apart, short antennae, and membranous front wings. They have an exceptionally loud song, produced in most species by

2484-525: Is interpreted to be a metaphor for a silver-colored structure. In the Ryukyuan religion , Ryūgū-jō ( Okinawan : Ruuguu ) is the source of fire for all family and village hearths. The Japanese name for the deep-sea dwelling giant oarfish is ryūgū-no-tsukai ( リュウグウノツカイ ) , literally lit. "messenger/servant of Ryūgū" or "Messenger from the Sea God's Palace". This real species of fish may have been

2592-407: Is localized as being from "Kitamae Oshima". It incorporates both the motif of the turtle being caught while fishing, and that of Urashima transforming into a crane at the end, which are found in the Otogizōshi . Here, it was a three-tiered jeweled hand-box ( 三重ねの玉手箱 , mitsugasane no tamatebako ) , that is to say, a stacked box that was given to Urashima. When he opened the lid, the first box (on

2700-408: Is loud enough to cause permanent hearing loss in humans should the cicada be at "close range". In contrast, some small species have songs so high in pitch that they are inaudible to humans. For the human ear, telling precisely where a cicada song originates is often difficult. The pitch is nearly constant, the sound is continuous to the human ear, and cicadas sing in scattered groups. In addition to

2808-530: Is mentioned by Hesiod in his poem " Works and Days ": "when the Skolymus flowers, and the tuneful Tettix sitting on his tree in the weary summer season pours forth from under his wings his shrill song". In the classic 14th-century Chinese novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms , Diaochan took her name from the sable ( diāo ) tails and jade decorations in the shape of cicadas ( chán ), which adorned

2916-587: Is not synchronized, so some members of each species appear every year. Cicadas have been featured in literature since the time of Homer 's Iliad and as motifs in art from the Chinese Shang dynasty . They have also been used in myth and folklore as symbols of carefree living and immortality. The cicada is also mentioned in Hesiod 's Shield (ll.393–394), in which it is said to sing when millet first ripens. Cicadas are eaten by humans in various parts of

3024-411: Is produced principally and in the majority of species using a special structure called a tymbal , a pair of which lies below each side of the anterior abdominal region. The structure is buckled by muscular action and, being made of resilin , unbuckles rapidly on muscle relaxation, producing their characteristic sounds. Some cicadas, however, have mechanisms for stridulation , sometimes in addition to

3132-436: Is remembered as a man who disappeared long ago, and would be over three hundred years old if still alive. Forgetting the promise, he opens the box, whereupon a beautiful figure like a fragrant orchid is carried away to the heavens with the clouds, and he realizes he can never meet the princess again. Still, the couple are somehow (supernaturally) able to exchange poems. These poems are recorded in phonetic man'yōgana . In

3240-442: Is sorry to see him go, but wishes him well and gives him a mysterious box called tamatebako which will protect him from harm but which she tells him never to open. Tarō grabs the box, jumps on the back of the same turtle that had brought him there, and soon is at the seashore. When he goes home, everything has changed. His home is gone, his mother has vanished, and the people he knew are nowhere to be seen. He asks if anybody knows

3348-549: Is subdivided into the subfamilies Cicadettinae , Cicadinae , Derotettiginae , Tibicininae (or Tettigadinae), and Tettigomyiinae they are found on all continents except Antarctica. Some previous works also included a family-level taxon called the Tibiceninae . The largest species is the Malaysian emperor cicada Megapomponia imperatoria ; its wingspan is up to about 20 cm (8 in). Cicadas are also notable for

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3456-400: Is the Dragon Palace, and on the four sides of the palace, each gardenscape is in a different season. Urashima decides to return to his home after three years and is given a memento box ( かたみの筥/箱 , katami no hako ) in parting. He arrives in his hometown to find it desolate, and discovers 700 years have passed since he last left it. He cannot restrain his temptation to open the box which he

3564-631: Is the school song "Urashima Tarō" (浦島太郎) of 1911 which begins with the line " Mukashi, mukashi Urashima wa, tasuketa kame ni tsurerarete (Long long ago was Urashima, by the turtle he rescued taken to the sea)", printed in the Jinjō shōgaku shōka  [ ja ] (1911). This song's author was long relegated to anonymity, but the lyricist is now considered to be Okkotsu Saburō  [ ja ] . Another school song "Urashima Tarō" (うらしまたろう, lyrics by Ishihara Wasaburō  [ ja ] and music by Tamura Torazō  [ ja ] ) appeared in

3672-571: The Fudoki for Tango Province ( Tango no Kuni Fudoki , 丹後国風土記 ) that survived in excerpts, the Man'yōshū and the Nihon Shoki . More recent editions of these texts tend to favor the "Ura (no) Shimako" reading, although some consider this debatable. It has also been proposed that it was not until the Heian Period that the misreading "Urashima (no) ko" became current, because names with

3780-482: The Nihon Shoki , Urashimako of Mizunoe is mentioned in the entry for Autumn, 7th month the 22nd year of reign of Emperor Yūryaku . Aston 's translation assigns this the year 478 A.D. The entry states that Urashimako (child Urashima, child of Urashima, etc.) of Mizunoe while fishing on a boat, caught a turtle which transformed into a woman. They went into the sea, and reached Mount Hōrai (glossed in kana as Tokoyo ), where they saw immortals ( 仙衆 (ひじり) ) . As to

3888-500: The Hyades cluster) who address him as the "husband of Kame Hime (Princess Turtle)". The remainder is mostly the same as the typical tale. After three years, the man develops a longing for his parents and homeland. The princess is saddened, but imparts him with a jeweled comb box ( 玉匣 , tamakushige ) , forbidding him to open it if he wished ever to return to her. He returns and finds no trace of his home or family, except that he

3996-602: The Jurassic and Lower Cretaceous of Eurasia and South America. The first of these was a fore wing discovered in the Taynton Limestone Formation of Oxfordshire, England; it was initially described as a butterfly in 1873, before being recognised as a cicada-like form and renamed Palaeontina oolitica . Tettigarctidae and Cicadidae had diverged from each other prior to or during the Jurassic , as evidenced by fossils related to both lineages present by

4104-541: The Late Triassic . The superfamily Palaeontinoidea contains three families. The Upper Permian Dunstaniidae are found in Australia and South Africa, and also in younger rocks from China. The Upper Triassic Mesogereonidae are found in Australia and South Africa. This group, though, is currently thought to be more distantly related to Cicadomorpha than previously thought. The Palaeontinidae or "giant cicadas" (though only distantly related to true cicadas) come from

4212-522: The Nihon shoki was written. In the mythology concerning the two princes Hoderi ("Fire Flash") and Hoori ("Fire Fade") in the Kojiki , the latter younger brother adventures to the Sea God's palace and emerges triumphant, and sires the line of emperors. The story has been often retold as fairytale, e.g. as "The Princes Fire-flash & Fire-fade". The Sea-God's palace, a "palace built like fishes' scales",

4320-608: The Otogi Bunko group. And the expression tamatebako or "jeweled hand-box" familiar to modern readers is also seen in the main text of Group I, and not the other groups (the interpolated poem excepted). The picture scroll in the collection of the Bodleian Library , Oxford University also belongs to Group I. Hayashi Kouhei has highlighted the characteristics of the Group I texts as follows: 1) Urashima purchases

4428-475: The Paleocene , around 56-59 million years ago. Cicadas are large insects made conspicuous by the courtship calls of the males. They are characterized by having three joints in their tarsi , and having small antennae with conical bases and three to six segments, including a seta at the tip. The Auchenorrhyncha differ from other hemipterans by having a rostrum that arises from the posteroventral part of

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4536-513: The Yōnen shōka (1900). Although written in stilted classical language , Miura considered this version the more familiar. Long before the versions in 19th century textbooks, there had been the otogi-zōshi versions from the Muromachi period . Conventionally, commentators using the term otogizōshi are referring by default to the text found in the Otogi Bunko (or "Companion Library"), since it

4644-413: The substrate rather than audible sounds. After mating, the female cuts slits into the bark of a twig where she deposits her eggs. Both male and female cicadas die within a few weeks after emerging from the soil. Although they have mouthparts and are able to consume some plant liquids for nutrition, the amount eaten is very small and the insects have a natural adult lifespan of less than two months. When

4752-603: The tracheae serve as resonance chambers with which it amplifies the sound. The cicada also modulates the song by positioning its abdomen toward or away from the substrate. Partly by the pattern in which it combines the clicks, each species produces its own distinctive mating songs and acoustic signals, ensuring that the song attracts only appropriate mates. The tettigarctid (or hairy) cicadas Tettigarcta crinita of Australia and T. tomentosa have rudimentary tymbals in both sexes and do not produce airborne sounds. Both males and females produce vibrations that are transmitted through

4860-464: The 1918–1932 period. An English translation has been provided in Yoshiko Holmes's thesis. Long ago, a man named Urashima Tarō of unidentified profession (or, in recent textbooks often a fisherman ) found a turtle on the beach being toyed with by a group of children. He purchased the turtle and released it in the ocean. Two or three days later, while he was fishing on a boat as always,

4968-507: The Cicadidae in having the prothorax extending as far as the scutellum , and by lacking the tympanal apparatus. The adult insect, known as an imago , is 2 to 5 cm (1 to 2 in) in total length in most species. The largest, the empress cicada ( Megapomponia imperatoria ), has a head-body length around 7 cm (2.8 in), and its wingspan is 18–20 cm (7–8 in). Cicadas have prominent compound eyes set wide apart on

5076-562: The Edo era, pictorial depiction of Ryūgū above the waves remained fairly conventional. A work may illustrate Ryūgū above water, yet describe it textually as underwater, as in a burlesque gesaku work of 1782 . In the Meiji era, akahon ehon  [ ja ] or "redbook picture books" of the 1880s, as well as Tsukioka Yoshitoshi 's (1886) print are examples of Ryūgū illustrated above water, but they are lacking in textual detail on whether it

5184-550: The Middle Jurassic (~ 165 million years ago) The morphology of well preserved fossils of early relatives of Cicadidae from the mid Cretaceous Burmese amber of Myanmar suggests that unlike many modern cicadids, they were either silent or only made quiet sounds. Most fossil Cicadidae are known from the Cenozoic, and the oldest unambiguously identified modern cicadid is Davispia bearcreekensis (subfamily Tibicininae) from

5292-1033: The North American species are the annual or jarfly or dog-day cicadas, members of the Neotibicen , Megatibicen , or Hadoa genera, so named because they emerge in late July and August. The best-known North American genus, however, may be Magicicada . These periodical cicadas have an extremely long life cycle of 13 or 17 years, with adults suddenly and briefly emerging in large numbers . Australian cicadas are found on tropical islands and cold coastal beaches around Tasmania, in tropical wetlands, high and low deserts, alpine areas of New South Wales and Victoria , large cities including Sydney , Melbourne , and Brisbane , and Tasmanian highlands and snowfields. Many of them have common names such as cherry nose, brown baker, red eye , greengrocer, yellow Monday, whisky drinker, double drummer , and black prince. The Australian greengrocer, Cyclochila australasiae ,

5400-703: The Western Pacific. About 100 species occur in the Palaearctic . A few species are found in southern Europe, and a single species was known from England, the New Forest cicada , Cicadetta montana , which also occurs in continental Europe. Many species await formal description and many well-known species are yet to be studied carefully using modern acoustic analysis tools that allow their songs to be characterized. Cicadinae Cicadettinae Tettigomyiinae Tibicininae Tettigarctidae Many of

5508-401: The abdomen. The abdomen is segmented, with the hindermost segments housing the reproductive organs, and terminates in females with a large, saw-edged ovipositor . In males, the abdomen is largely hollow and used as a resonating chamber . The surface of the fore wing is superhydrophobic ; it is covered with minute, waxy cones, blunt spikes that create a water-repellent film. Rain rolls across

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5616-428: The adults of periodical cicadas, the spores remaining dormant in the soil between outbreaks. This fungus is also capable of dosing cicadas with psilocybin , the psychedelic drug found in magic mushrooms , as well as cathinone , an alkaloid similar to various amphetamines . These chemicals alter the behaviour of the cicadas, driving males to copulate, including attempts with males, and is thought to be beneficial to

5724-408: The ancient and standard modern versions (700 years in the feudal period versions). The Mizukagami (1195) gives a more precise reckoning; Urashima supposedly returned in the 2nd year of Tenchō (825 AD), 347 years later. This matches the claim in Nihon shoki that he disappeared in the year of Yuraku 22, conventionally assigned the year 478. But it also means he did not come back until a century after

5832-501: The ballad-form by Chamberlain. In this version, the woman of the Immortal Land (Tokoyo) appears as the daughter of the Sea God ( Watatsumi no kami ). Basil Hall Chamberlain (1880) indicated the presence of a temple dedicated to Urashima at Kanagawa-ku, Yokohama , which housed several relics such as Urashima's fishing-line, and the casket (tamatebako). But when Ernest Satow went there with Chamberlain on 2 May 1880, there

5940-445: The body and pressed close to the substrate. Some cicada species play dead when threatened. Some cicadas such as Hemisciera maculipennis display bright deimatic flash coloration on their hind wings when threatened; the sudden contrast helps to startle predators, giving the cicadas time to escape. Most cicadas are diurnal and rely on camouflage when at rest, but some species use aposematism -related Batesian mimicry , wearing

6048-512: The bottom of the sea, to the Palace of the Dragon God ( Ryūgū-jō ). There he meets the Emperor and the small turtle, who was now a lovely princess, Otohime . The palace had a view to the four seasons, a different one on each side. Tarō stays there with Otohime for three days, but soon wants to go back to his village and see his aging mother, so he requests permission to leave. The princess says she

6156-546: The bright colors that warn of toxicity in other animals; the Malaysian Huechys sanguinea has conspicuous red and black warning coloration, is diurnal, and boldly flies about in full view of possible predators. Predators such as the sarcophagid fly Emblemasoma hunt cicadas by sound, being attracted to their songs. Singing males soften their song so that the attention of the listener gets distracted to neighbouring louder singers, or cease singing altogether as

6264-411: The cicadas' distinctive sounds, both sexes have membranous structures called tympana (singular – tympanum) by which they detect sounds, the equivalent of having ears. Males disable their own tympana while calling, thereby preventing damage to their hearing; a necessity partly because some cicadas produce sounds up to 120  dB (SPL) which is among the loudest of all insect-produced sounds. The song

6372-465: The country, rewrote the Urashima tale under the title " The Dream of a Summer Day " in the late 19th century, working off of a copy of Chamberlain's "Japanese Fairy Tale Series" version. As always with folklore, there are many different versions of this story. There are other versions that add a further epilogue explaining the subsequent fate of Urashima Tarō after he turns into an old man. In one, he falls to dust and dies, in another, he transforms into

6480-406: The creature transforms into a beautiful woman. She identifies herself as someone from the household of immortals, and proposes to take him to the place of immortals, which may be Horaisan ( Mount Penglai ) or "Tokoyo-no-kuni" ("Timeless Land" or "Land of Eternity"). They are greeted by first seven, then eight children, who represent the constellations of Pleiades and Taurus (or more precisely

6588-405: The day as adults, with some calling at dawn or dusk. Only a rare few species are known to be nocturnal. One exclusively North American genus, Magicicada (the periodical cicadas ), which spend most of their lives as underground nymphs, emerge in predictable intervals of 13 or 17 years, depending on the species and the location. The unusual duration and synchronization of their emergence may reduce

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6696-412: The dozen tales included in the 4th edition of national language reader textbooks also known as Sakura tokuhon  [ ja ] used from 1933 to c. 1940, thus continuing to enjoy wide recognition; for this reason Urashima could be considered one of the core stories of the so-called Japanese "national fairy tales". A number of renditions exist, where they are set to music. Among the most popular

6804-473: The eggs hatch, the newly hatched nymphs drop to the ground and burrow. Cicadas live underground as nymphs for most of their lives at depths down to about 2.5 m (8 ft). Nymphs have strong front legs for digging and excavating chambers near to roots, where they feed on xylem sap. In the process, their bodies and interior of the burrow become coated in anal fluids. In wet habitats, larger species construct mud towers above ground to aerate their burrows. In

6912-433: The eyes and makes up most of the front of the head; it contains the pumping musculature. The thorax has three segments and houses the powerful wing muscles. They have two pairs of membranous wings that may be hyaline , cloudy, or pigmented. The wing venation varies between species and may help in identification. The middle thoracic segment has an operculum on the underside, which may extend posteriorly and obscure parts of

7020-434: The final nymphal instar , they construct an exit tunnel to the surface and emerge. They then moult (shed their skins) on a nearby plant for the last time, and emerge as adults. The exuviae or abandoned exoskeletons remain, still clinging to the bark of the tree. Most cicadas go through a life cycle that lasts 2–5 years. Some species have much longer life cycles, such as the North American genus, Magicicada , which has

7128-666: The food plants and extrude the excess water through pores in the tergum at a modest cost in energy. Such a rapid loss of water can be sustained only by feeding on water-rich xylem sap . At lower temperatures, feeding cicadas would normally need to excrete the excess water. By evaporative cooling, desert cicadas can reduce their bodily temperature by some 5 °C. Some non-desert cicada species such as Magicicada tredecem also cool themselves evaporatively, but less dramatically. Conversely, many other cicadas can voluntarily raise their body temperatures as much as 22 °C (40 °F) above ambient temperature. The "singing" of male cicadas

7236-709: The fungus, as the fungal spores are dispersed by a larger number of infected carriers. Plants can also defend themselves against cicadas. Although cicadas can feed on the roots of gymnosperms, it has been found that resinous conifers such as pine do not allow the eggs of Magicicada to hatch, the resin sealing up the egg cavities. Cicadas use a variety of strategies to evade predators. Large cicadas can fly rapidly to escape if disturbed. Many are extremely well camouflaged to evade predators such as birds that hunt by sight. Being coloured like tree bark and disruptively patterned to break up their outlines, they are difficult to discern; their partly transparent wings are held over

7344-472: The glut. Newly hatched nymphs may be eaten by ants, and nymphs living underground are preyed on by burrowing mammals such as moles. In northern Japan, brown bears prey on final instar nymphs of cicadas during summer by digging up the ground. In Australia, cicadas are preyed on by the Australian cicada killer wasp ( Exeirus lateritius ), which stings and stuns cicadas high in the trees, making them drop to

7452-409: The grateful turtle came and told him he would carry him on his back to the underwater Dragon Palace ( Ryūgū ). At the palace, the princess ( Otohime ) thanked him for saving the turtle. After an unspecified number of days, remembrance of his mother and father made him homesick, and he bid farewell to Otohime. The princess tried to dissuade him from leaving, but finally let him go with a parting gift,

7560-951: The great length of time some species take to mature. At least 3,000 cicada species are distributed worldwide, in essentially any habitat that has deciduous trees, with the majority being in the tropics. Most genera are restricted to a single biogeographical region, and many species have a very limited range. This high degree of endemism has been used to study the biogeography of complex island groups such as in Indonesia and Asia. There are several hundred described species in Australia and New Zealand , around 150 in South Africa, over 170 in America north of Mexico, at least 800 in Latin America, and over 200 in Southeast Asia and

7668-417: The ground, where the cicada hunter mounts and carries them, pushing with its hind legs, sometimes over a distance of 100 m, until they can be shoved down into its burrow, where the numb cicadas are placed onto one of many shelves in a "catacomb", to form the food stock for the wasp grub that grows out of the egg deposited there. A katydid predator from Australia is capable of attracting singing male cicadas of

7776-530: The hats of high-level officials. In the Japanese novel The Tale of Genji , the title character poetically likens one of his many love interests to a cicada for the way she delicately sheds her robe the way a cicada sheds its shell when molting. Cicada exuviae play a role in the manga Winter Cicada . Cicadas are a frequent subject of haiku , where, depending on type, they can indicate spring, summer, or autumn. Shaun Tan 's illustrated book Cicada tells

7884-422: The head, complex sound-producing membranes, and a mechanism for linking the wings that involves a down-rolled edging on the rear of the fore wing and an upwardly protruding flap on the hind wing. Cicadas are feeble jumpers, and nymphs lack the ability to jump altogether. Another defining characteristic is the adaptations of the fore limbs of nymphs for underground life. The relict family Tettigarctidae differs from

7992-524: The legend of Urashimako ( Urashima no ko or Ura no Shimako ) recorded in various pieces of literature dating to the 8th century, such as the Fudoki for Tango Province , Nihon Shoki , and the Man'yōshū . During the Muromachi to Edo periods , versions of Urashima Tarō appeared in storybook form called the Otogizōshi , made into finely painted picture scrolls and picture books or mass-printed copies. These texts vary considerably, and in some,

8100-520: The like') according to Meiji Era akahon ehon ("red book" editions). The use of materials such as pearl or crystal on the exterior is given in Brauns' translation (Englished by Lang), alongside the interior hall being illuminated by fish scales. Masayuki Kataoka's English translation (1886) describes a Dragon's Palace with a crystal dome, which a researcher considers a novel, unfamiliar feature. Kataoka's translation, upon comparison, differed greatly from

8208-441: The mating song, many species have a distinct distress call, usually a broken and erratic sound emitted by the insect when seized or panicked. Some species also have courtship songs, generally quieter, and produced after a female has been drawn to the calling song. Males also produce encounter calls, whether in courtship or to maintain personal space within choruses. The songs of cicadas are considered by entomologists to be unique to

8316-517: The midwestern and eastern US in the same year every 221 years (13 × 17), with 2024 being the first such year since 1803. Cicada nymphs drink sap from the xylem of various species of trees, including oak , cypress , willow , ash , and maple . While common folklore indicates that adults do not eat, they actually do drink plant sap using their sucking mouthparts. Cicadas excrete fluid in streams of droplets due to their high volume consumption of xylem sap. The jets of urine that cicadas produce have

8424-560: The number of cicadas lost to predation , both by making them a less reliably available prey (so that any predator that evolved to depend on cicadas for sustenance might starve waiting for their emergence), and by emerging in such huge numbers that they will satiate any remaining predators before losing enough of their number to threaten their survival as a species. The annual cicadas are species that emerge every year. Though these cicadas' life cycles can vary from 1 to 9 or more years as underground nymphs, their emergence above ground as adults

8532-524: The origins of the mythical jinjahime  [ ja ] , which also claimed to be a "messenger/servant of Ryūgū". This ( 神社姫 , lit. 'shrine princess') , was a type of the so-called "prophet beast" ( yogenjū ) during the Edo period , which prophesied bountiful harvest followed by epidemic . The Katase-Enoshima Station in Fujisawa , Kanagawa Prefecture is a structure built to resemble Ryūgū-jō, as

8640-434: The palace. When he returns to his home village, his absence turns out to have been 400 years. Urashima now wishes to go back to the Dragon Palace but he does not know the means, and opens the box. He turns into a white-haired, wrinkled old man and dies. The ending by death concurs with older tradition, and not the otogi-zōshi storybook. Lafcadio Hearn , who lived in Japan and translated or adapted many ghost stories from

8748-456: The phrase that they go "into the sea" implies, the Mount Hōrai as conceived here may be a submarine island, a suggestion made by Japanese literature professor Ōkuma Kiichirō  [ ja ] . A poem reflecting upon the legend of Urashima of Mizunoe occurs in the Man'yōshū . The piece is ascribed to Takahashi no Mushimaro . Early translations include the prose rendition by Aston, and

8856-468: The rapid buckling and unbuckling of drum-like tymbals . The earliest known fossil Cicadomorpha appeared in the Upper Permian period; extant species occur all around the world in temperate to tropical climates. They typically live in trees, feeding on watery sap from xylem tissue, and laying their eggs in a slit in the bark. Most cicadas are cryptic . The vast majority of species are active during

8964-481: The sad, sweet voice of the princess: "I told you not to open that box. In it was your old age ...". A summary of the Urashima tale from one of the nationalized textbooks ( Kokutei kyōkasho  [ ja ] ) will be given below. The base text used will be Urashima Tarō (うらしま太郎), from the 3rd edition of the Kokugo tokuhon  [ ja ] or "national language reader", a widely familiar textbook used during

9072-467: The sandy shore. Chamberlain had freely substituted more ancient text material into his retelling of the Urashima fairytale. Chamberlain also interchangeably uses "Sea God's Palace", probably with the archaic god-name Watatsumi in mind. Eventually, the Dragon Palace undersea became the standard in modern tellings of the Urashima tale. A canonical example by the Taisho Era, according to one researcher,

9180-472: The sides of the head. The short antennae protrude between the eyes or in front of them. They also have three small ocelli located on the top of the head in a triangle between the two large eyes; this distinguishes cicadas from other members of the Hemiptera. The mouthparts form a long, sharp rostrum that they insert into the plant to feed. The postclypeus is a large, nose-like structure that lies between

9288-444: The species may use different heights and timing of calling. While the vast majority of cicadas call from above the ground, two Californian species, Okanagana pallidula and O. vanduzeei are known to call from hollows made at the base of the tree below the ground level. The adaptive significance is unclear, as the calls are not amplified or modified by the burrow structure, but this may avoid predation . Although only males produce

9396-412: The story ends with Urashima Tarō transforming into a crane. Some iconic elements in the modern version are relatively recent. The portrayal of him riding a turtle dates only to the early 18th century, and while he is carried underwater to the Dragon Palace in modern tellings, he rides a boat to the princess's world called Hōrai in older versions. The Urashima Tarō tale familiar to most Japanese follows

9504-514: The story from this nationally designated textbook series. One day, a young fisherman named Urashima Tarō is fishing when he notices a group of children torturing a small turtle. Tarō saves it and lets it go back to the sea. The next day, a huge turtle approaches him and tells him that the small turtle he had saved is the daughter of the Emperor of the Sea, Ryūjin , who wants to see him to thank him. The turtle magically gives Tarō gills and brings him to

9612-709: The story of a hardworking but underappreciated cicada working in an office. Branden Jacobs-Jenkins' play Appropriate takes place on an Arkansas farm in summer, and calls for the sounds of mating cicadas to underscore the entire show. Being lightweight, and with hooklike legs, the exuviae of cicadas can be used as hair or clothing accessories. Cicadas were eaten in Ancient Greece , and are consumed in selected regions in modern China , both as adults and (more often) as nymphs. Cicadas are also eaten in Malaysia , Burma , North America, and central Africa, as well as

9720-520: The storyline of children's tale author Iwaya Sazanami  [ ja ] in the Meiji period . A condensed version of Sazanami's retelling then appeared in Kokutei kyōkasho  [ ja ] , Japan's nationally designated textbook for elementary school, and became widely read by schoolchildren of the populace. Modern versions of Urashima Tarō, which are generally similar, are demonstrably based on

9828-445: The suffix -ko ("child") came to be regarded as female, even though it once applied to either gender. When the texts were written for the kyōgen theatre, the character's name underwent further change to Urashima Tarō, with -tarō ("great youth") being a common suffix in male names. Or perhaps the name was borrowed from Tarō kaja  [ ja ] who is a stock character in kyōgen. The Man'yōshū ballad mentions not only

9936-683: The surface, removing dirt in the process. In the absence of rain, dew condenses on the wings. When the droplets coalesce, the cicada leaps several millimetres into the air, which also serves to clean the wings. Bacteria landing on the wing surface are not repelled; rather, their membranes are torn apart by the nanoscale-sized spikes, making the wing surface the first-known biomaterial that can kill bacteria. Desert cicadas such as Diceroprocta apache are unusual among insects in controlling their temperature by evaporative cooling , analogous to sweating in mammals. When their temperature rises above about 39 °C (102 °F), they suck excess sap from

10044-531: The text of the akahon picture books, though he had blatantly appropriated and reworked their illustrations. Here, there is a long distance from the gatekeeper to the palace proper, and Urashima is guided by a pretty glass ball that rolls of is own accord. A notable feature of the Dragon Palace according to the "feudal" ( otogizōshi ) versions is the view to the "four seasons on four sides", though this has been eschewed in Chamberlain's translation. However,

10152-416: The top) contained a crane 's feather, and the second a puff of white smoke that turned him into an old man, and the third a mirror, which made him see for himself that he had suddenly grown old. The feather from the first box then attached itself to his back, and Urashima flew up to the sky, encircling his mother's grave. The story entitled "The Fisher-boy Urashima" (1886) retold by Basil Hall Chamberlain ,

10260-478: The tree substrate. They are considered as representing the original state from which other cicada communication has evolved. Average temperature of the natural habitat for the South American species Fidicina rana is about 29 °C (84 °F). During sound production, the temperature of the tymbal muscles was found to be significantly higher. Many cicadas sing most actively during the hottest hours of

10368-466: The tymbals. Here, the wings are rubbed over a series of midthoracic ridges. In the Chinese species Subpsaltria yangi , both males and females can stridulate. The sounds may further be modulated by membranous coverings and by resonant cavities. The male abdomen in some species is largely hollow, and acts as a sound box . By rapidly vibrating these membranes, a cicada combines the clicks into apparently continuous notes, and enlarged chambers derived from

10476-455: The type text, differs considerably from the typical children's storybook published in the modern day: the protagonist neither purchases the turtle from others to save it, nor rides the turtle. Group I texts are more similar to the modern version, as it contains the element of Urashima purchasing the turtle to save it. Additionally, this group explicitly gives the princess's name as Otomime (or "Kame-no-Otohime") whereas she remains unnamed in

10584-475: The view to the four seasons is incorporated in Mrs. Ozaki's translation: cherry blossom in bloom to the east (spring), buzzing cicadas to the south (summer), multi-colored maple leaves to the west (autumn), and snow-covered ground to the north (winter). This is presumably based on a text edited by Iwaya Sazanami  [ ja ] , probably the text of Nihon mukashibanashi (1896), which corresponds roughly with

10692-588: The woman of the Immortal Land, but her father as the Sea God ( Watatsumi ). Although this Sea God cannot be automatically equated with the Dragon God or Dragon King, due to the influence of the Chinese mythology of Nine Offspring of the Dragon in the Tang period , it has been speculated that the turtle princess must have been the Dragon King's daughter in even those early versions. The otherworld Urashima visited

10800-607: The world, including China , Myanmar , Malaysia , and central Africa . The name is directly from the onomatopoeic Latin cicada . The superfamily Cicadoidea is a sister of the Cercopoidea (the froghoppers). Cicadas are arranged into two families: the Tettigarctidae and Cicadidae. The two extant species of the Tettigarctidae include one in southern Australia and the other in Tasmania . The family Cicadidae

10908-592: Was cautioned not to open, whereupon three wisps of purple cloud appear and turn him into an old man. It ends with Urashima Tarō transforming into a crane, and his wife reverting to the form of a turtle, the two thereafter revered as myōjin ( Shinto deities). There are over 50 texts of the Urashima Tarō otogi-zōshi extant. These variants fall into four broad groups, clustered by their similarity. The Otogi Bunko text belongs to Group IV. The Otogi Bunko version, despite its conventional status as

11016-459: Was identical in content. It has even been suggested by Shūichi Katō that this Umakai originally adapted this tale into Japanese from a similar Chinese tale. In this version, the protagonist is referred to as "Urashimako of Mizunoe" (or "Urashimako of Tsutsukawa  [ ja ] in Yosa-gun ". Urashimako catches a five-coloured turtle and keeps it in his boat, and during his sleep,

11124-469: Was not given to the character until the 15th century (the Muromachi period ), first appearing in a genre of illustrated popular fiction known as otogizōshi , and in the kyōgen play adaptation. The story itself can be found in much older sources, dating to the 8th century (the Nara period ), where the protagonist is styled either "Urashima no ko" or "Ura (no) Shimako", attested in earlier sources such as

11232-540: Was not the "Dragon Palace" ( Ryūgū ) until the otogi-zōshi versions appeared. The heroine then became Otohime, the younger daughter of the Dragon King. As for the relative dating of these texts, an argument has been advanced that places the Fudoki version as the oldest. The argument dates the Tango fudoki to shortly after 715, but the compilers refer to an earlier record by Iyobe no Umakai  [ ja ] , which

11340-460: Was nothing left to see except the statue of Kannon (Kanzeon), the bodhisattva of mercy. Cicadas The cicadas ( / s ɪ ˈ k ɑː d ə z , - ˈ k eɪ -/ ) are a superfamily, the Cicadoidea , of insects in the order Hemiptera (true bugs). They are in the suborder Auchenorrhyncha , along with smaller jumping bugs such as leafhoppers and froghoppers . The superfamily

11448-542: Was number 8 in the "Japanese Fairy Tale Series", printed by Hasegawa Takejirō , the issuer of many such chirimen-bon or "crepe-paper books". Although the illustrations are not credited in the publication, they have been attributed to Kobayashi Eitaku . There is no single base text in Japanese identifiable, although it has been conjectured that Chamberlain adapted from "a popular version" and not straying far from it except adding explanatory or instructive passages for young readers. Others have determined it must have been

11556-478: Was printed and widely disseminated. In the Otogi Bunko (or "Companion Library") version, a young fisherman named Urashima Tarō catches a turtle on his fishing line and releases it. The next day, Urashima encounters a boat with a woman on it wishing to be escorted home. She does not identify herself, although she is the transformation of the turtle that was spared. When Urashima rows her boat to her magnificent residence, she proposes that they marry. The residence

11664-418: Was the edition by Mori Rintarō (novelist Mori Ōgai ) and others, published 1920–1921, whose illustration shows Urashima and the turtle peeing underneath at the palace. "The walls of the Palace were of coral, the trees had emeralds for leaves and rubies for berries" (Chamberlain), roughly coincides with the inner chambers being fashioned with sangoju kin no tagui ( 珊樹樹金の類 , lit. 'treelike coral, gold, and

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