Stridulate

The Word of the Day for March 10 is "stridulate"

stridulate: (verb) To produce a
shrill grating, chirping, or hissing sound by rubbing body parts together, as certain insects do.

Synonyms: clitter

Usage: The meadow was filled with the sound of countless unseen grasshoppers
stridulating in unison.

Relevance to my life: As a child, in the summer when we'd go off to play
outside, sometimes the combination of the muggy heat and cicadas' stridulation
seemed to make the air shimmer, and I'd get dizzy.

For those of you who have never heard cicadas, check this out:







I am not a bug person by any means, but I spent some of the morning reading up on the Periodical Cicada,which I've also heard called the 17-Year Cicada and the 17-Year Locust. They're different from the yearly arrivals, or Annual Cicadas. These guys spend 17 years dormant as nymphs underground and then emerge to make all that racket to find a mate before they die.

Sort of a desperate swan song, except they're in little danger of dying out as a species from predators because they can reach a population density of hundreds of thousands to over 1 million per square acre.

No wonder they're so damn loud!

"Many people know periodical cicadas by the name "17-year locusts" or "13-year locusts", but they are not true locusts, which are a type of grasshopper. Their uniqueness has given them a special appeal and cultural status: members of the Onondaga Nation maintain the oral tradition of being rescued from famine by periodical cicadas; early European colonists viewed periodical cicadas with a mixture of religious apprehension
and loathing and modern Americans maintain numerous websites to assist in planning weddings, graduations, and other outdoor activities around Magicicada emergences." -From Magicicada