h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I'd like to recommend: http://www.h2g2.com/A444197

It's mainly about periodical cicadas which are big bugs with a very unusual life cycle.

Is it adequate? Do I need to alter it? Please let me know what you think. (I hope someone else round here likes bugs.)

Excellent!

The only suggestion I might make is that you provide a little more information on distribution. I once saw a documentary about a plague of cicadas in a suburb of Chicago, Illinois. they were emerging from the ground in unbelievable numbers. Does this sort of thing take place anywhere else that you know of? If I'm not mistaken, this happens quite regularly in the Chicago area.

JTG

I enjoyed it as well. Well written , informative, well laid out, everything The Guide needs, and enjoyable too Until later....
BCNU - Crescent

Thank you both very much. How kind!

John-the-GURUdener, I could put in some more information about distribution and the broods' Roman number designation. Chicago isn't the only city to be built on top of a brood of cicadas there are other anecdotes I could include. I could also say how disturbance of their territory affects the cicadas. I wondered if size of entry might be an issue though. It's already about 3 pages long. I could ramble on more or less endlessly about a subject that really interests me, but should I? I could also put in something about predator evasion. I'm more than happy to do it, but before I do, could you let me know what the preferred or optimum size is for an edited guide entry.

I had to be ever so self-disciplined and ruthless about leaving interesting stuff out to keep it to a length I imagined would be acceptable.

Sal

As big as you want it I am working on an Entry that is over 25 pages at the moment Put in everything, it is meant to be the Guide to Life on Earth Make it as comprehensive ass possible Well, that is my advice Hope this helps....
BCNU - Crescent

You mean I trotted out and dusted off my seldom-used self-discipline for nothing? Well, if only I'd known!

Thanks Crescent.

As long as it's interesting... it needn't ever end.

JTG

That was surprisingly interesting. I was surprised because I'm not interested in bugs. It was a nice "bite sized", information-rich morsel that was easy to digest. I liked the way it was kinda scientific without choking in jargon. I'm ashamed to admit that the first things I look for when reading things like this are how big it is and how readable it is. If it looks to be huge and full of technical terms, I'll go and look at something else instead. If you feel you must add to it (just my opinion) don't make it very much bigger. I think its modest size is one of its good features.

I really enjoyed this article. I've just come back from Rhodes and enjoyed sitting on the balcony of the apartment in the dusk listening to cicadas 'singing'. I'd really love to see some pictures of them. I don't know how you achieve this in h2g2. I'll have to step outside in a moment and look alsewhere on the web. I found some bugs that looked like large crickets with wings on the steps one night and spent a while moving them so they wouldn't get trodden on. Could they be cicadas?

Another feature of the holiday is the number of times I was attracted into looking in the roadside grass for singing insects only to find humming electricity installations.

I really enjoyed this article. I've just come back from Rhodes and enjoyed sitting on the balcony of the apartment in the dusk listening to cicadas 'singing'. I'd really love to see some pictures of them. I don't know how you achieve this in h2g2. I'll have to step outside in a moment and look elsewhere on the web. I found some bugs that looked like large crickets with wings on the steps one night and spent a while moving them so they wouldn't get trodden on. Could they be cicadas?

Another feature of the holiday is the number of times I was attracted into looking in the roadside grass for singing insects only to find electricity installations.

oops - sorry!

Thank you for your positive comments, Shorn and Doreen.

Shorn, that's very gratifying. Bugs *are* interesting. Some are more interesting than others of course. It's just that quite a lot of people haven't noticed. I agree with you about the length of the article. I don't like reading long texts on screen. I'm prepared to read long books but screens make my eyes hurt after a while. Maybe that's just me though. I think I'll just put in a paragraph or 2 about distribution and the Roman numbering of broods. It's pretty unique and I think it's worth making it a little bit longer.

Doreen, I think the h2g2 editors decide on pictures in edited guide entries. This is my first entry so I don't know exactly how the system works yet. I think I've read somewhere that you shouldn't fill your guide entries with all sorts of "bells and whistles" if you want to submit them for editing, because the editors do that as they see fit.

I don't know about the cricket-like bugs on your steps. Where were you (on the planet) when you saw them? They might have actually been crickets or, possibly grasshoppers. I don't suppose you noticed their mouth parts did you? Crickets are munchers whereas cicadas are suckers and they have a sort of beak. Also, grasshoppers and crickets have big back legs whereas cicadas don't.

When cicadas are in full "song" they make a hell of a din so maybe it's a bit misleading to call it singing. I doubt a humming electricity installation sounds quite like a real live cicada chorus.

Thanks for your enlightening us on the munching or sucking varieties of bug. I spent some weeks in southern France in the summer, 50 miles east of Bordeaux. Of an evening, one would be deafened by the cicadas/crickets in the corn fields. I still dont know what variety they would have been in this part of the world. Can anyone put me straight?

Shorn, bugs are interesting. Full stop. End of story.



Amy the Ant

Teeky, I've been trying to find out what species an enormous (about 4") caterpillar I saw lumbering through my garden, belongs to. It's very difficult to find out.

There are thought to be, perhaps 2,500 different species of cicada world wide and quite a few of them live in Europe. Then there are the crickets ... . A little while ago I was reading some correspondence between an entomologist and a lady who had cicadas erupting from her garden in New Mexico. She wanted to know which species they were. She was able to give him the exact location and describe the particular bugs in question, but he didn't have the answer. The truth is that most of the worlds invertebrates are undocumented and even the ones that are known aren't necessarily well documented. The lady in Mexico was so fascinated by the cicadas in her yard that she decided she, herself would study them and find out all she could. And that's how bugs often get documented. Someone decides to spend their time and resources finding out about some little animal that has grabbed their interest - and it's not always a specialist or expert.

That's a long winded way of saying, sorry, haven't a clue. It does sound like cicadas though. They really are very very noisy critters.

You're quite right Amy. They're all interesting. I didn't mean to sound as though I was discriminating, it's just that periodical cicadas are ... well, VERY interesting indeed. That's not to say they're more interesting than Ants, for example, which aren't bugs in any case.

Excellent entry! Very readable, fascinating about the prime numbers. Is it possible to tell from the "song" whether you're listening to crickets or cicadas?

Hi Wazungu and thank you very much.

Yes it is. There are people out there who can not only tell whether it's a cicada, but what species of cicada it is (if it's a cicada they're familiar with, of course). Male crickets make a sort of chirping call by rubbing their front wings against their back wings.

Different species of cicadas have different "songs". The following are descriptions I've read of different periodical cicada songs: one "sounds like a flying saucer, giving a breathy, whirring whistle", another "sounds like little ratchets" and another "makes a cheep cheep until so many of them cluster that they sound like someone throwing water into hot fat".

I think the prime number aspect is the most fascinating part of the story - that and the way the periodical cicadas synchronise their emergence. I'm not easily impressed (I don't think I am, anyway) but these little things just impress me to bits!

I say! John-the-GURUdener and Crescent, yoo-hoo.

I've edited the article to include the Roman numeral designations, distribution and your Chicago plague. I've kept it brief even though I could have given other examples, I think one is sufficient to make the point. I hope you think so too. If you would be kind enough to confirm that the article is up to scratch now (I'd cross my fingers but that makes typing difficult ), I'll start researching for my next project.

Excellent Good going, maybe the quote could be put in italics, but that can be a SubEd job Even before this it would have (I would have thought) got through the Peer Review, but nae bothers now Now it is just a matter of waiting Until later.....
BCNU - Crescent

Oh heck. Amy, you caught me being buggist. I don't know where to hide my face (think I'd better tuck it under my wing). In my defence, I did find this entry very interesting and now I'm a convert. I've seen the error of my ways. I've seen the light.