Today I'm going to try and clean the tree leaf secretion dropping stuff off. The Triumph, Suzuki and my bike were covered in the sticky stuff. It's left spots on the headers too, which will hopefully polish out. I know saliva lifts it, but it's been two weeks and I still haven't collected enough!
ME 109 wrote:That was bug piss man. Little cicadas.
Irky perky! They must've felt threatened!
Wikipedia wrote:Cicada spray or is it pee?
I live near Sydney Australia and am surrounded by the bush. In summer we have millions of very noisy cicadas and a rain of fine mist which I'm sure is either cicada pee or some hormone secretion. When I say a fine mist, I'm not exaggerating. You can feel it and see it like fine rain on a clear sunny day and it is definitely something from the cicadas yet I cannot find any article that relates to this. I would like to know more about this spray, please Farmgirl130 (talk) 10:29, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
I'm reading Jean-Henri Fabre's "Social Life in the Insect World" [7] right now, and he seems content to call it urine. It is a very old source, but according to him people in 1911 Provence, France were all quite familiar with this spray. He even translates an old Provençal poem about cicadas that mentions it. He was under the impression it was used as a defense mechanism; I have no idea if that's the case. Personally, I've never seen a cicada in North America do this. Even though the science is outdated, maybe some of Fabre's more cultural stuff about cicadas, like the poem, would be neat to see here.--RemyWay (talk) 14:44, 17 September 2013 (UTC)
I'm from Sydney too and back in the 1970's when I was a kid one of our favourite passtimes was cicada hunting. I can say that sometimes, but not always, when we climbed trees (usually maples) to catch cicadas they would pee on us and fly off in an attempt to escape. It would usually be at the last second as you reached up to grab them, a small squirt. Definitely used as a defense mechanism. Happy days
Airbear wrote:
Damn, a vehicle coming the other way. Bloody traffic!
That's what you get when you ride on the weekend.
Oh well , at least he wasn't there on the way back.
My/our? favourite bike road just tripled in length.
Did you see yesself and Jane and Bob, at the end of the vid?
Yep, sure did. Great vid, Jeff. When it's cold and bleak or too fekkin' hot to ride and I'm in the mood for a bit of adrenaline I'll be able to pull up that vid and have a nice brisk virtual ride on the Omeo. Thanks for that.
Charlie
and Brunhilde - 1974 R90/6
Graduate, Wallace and Gromit School of Engineering and Design (Pending)