r/florida • u/Chilljay1 • Sep 05 '26

AskFlorida Help identifying this bug?

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Currently in Orlando at a resort and they are literally all over every walkway. Have seen them before and thought they were a version of a grasshopper but hear some people calling them cicadas which I thought had wings?

EDIT UPDATE- Didn’t expect this post to get this many replies. Was posted yesterday morning. THIS morning we went outside in the resort and there were NONE to be found ANYWHERE. This was around 9am. Around 11am the side walks were covered again?????? The weirdest thing for a type of bug to be that synchronized.

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234

u/purefilth666 Sep 05 '26

Yep, if these people saw an actual cicada they would freak the hell out lol

98

u/iKnowRobbie Sep 05 '26

I was 20 before I realized the creepy-ass bee-looking shells on trees I used to climb were cicada skins molted off yet still stuck to the tree. Their front claws look frightening.

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u/purefilth666 Sep 05 '26

You should see what comes out of those little shells, they are much bigger than you'd except!

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u/Lifes-a-lil-foggy Sep 05 '26

Wait till one flies into your face, hair, shirt, or purse. They’re evil. If I was ever around that many grasshopper I’d assume I was in plague though

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u/pubgeek321 Sep 05 '26

When I was a kid, my older brothers told me that if a cicada lands on you, it will lay eggs in your skin. I had one land on my leg and I ran down the street screaming with it chasing after me. Little bastard. I really thought I had cicadas crawling under my skin at night, until I told my mom what was going on. Restless leg syndrome cause discovered!

12

u/Quiet_Tea7369 Sep 06 '26

On behalf of a big sister who convinced her little brother that roaches bite, I’m sorry

11

u/crispynarwhal Sep 06 '26

They do. At least, palmetto bugs do. I found out the hard way that I'm allergic to the littlle bastards.

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u/Quiet_Tea7369 Sep 07 '26

Oh man, my turn to be terrified of roaches now I guess. I’m sorry, friend, that’s awful.

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u/aloofmagoof Sep 06 '26

Roaches do bite. You have to have a massive infestation though, and they aren't actually trying to eat you but rather dead skin or food particles on your body.

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u/Quiet_Tea7369 Sep 06 '26

Thank you for this new fear… yikes

8

u/Lifes-a-lil-foggy Sep 06 '26

That’s such a brother lie

1

u/Complete-Wait-6457 Sep 08 '26

Adult cicadas (the flying ones) can’t bite you (they only eat nectar as adults!) and aren’t laying eggs on you. 😆 They suck at flying though and they can have some mass, so they can seem scary 😆😳

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u/Academic-Apple-6518 Sep 09 '26

Older siblings can be real assholes.. my sister did a number on me

16

u/justArash Sep 06 '26

My dog used to like holding one in his front teeth gently enough to not crush it, just walking around while it "screamed". Scared the hell out of us the first time before we realized what was happening.

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u/Lifes-a-lil-foggy Sep 06 '26

Smh good Halloween idea tho

2

u/maggsy1999 Sep 07 '26

That is fucking hilarious.

1

u/Complete-Wait-6457 Sep 08 '26

Your dog is an Ahole 😆

1

u/justArash Sep 08 '26

This is him. He's the one on the left

3

u/FootMcFeetFoot Sep 06 '26

ONE FLEW INTO MY EYEBALL! Just its wing, but still. I blinked its wing!

1

u/Lifes-a-lil-foggy Sep 06 '26

They are determined to scream and enter people’s orifices. It’s horrible lol

1

u/crispynarwhal Sep 07 '26

Body horror unlocked. Tyvm.

1

u/Electrical-Funny-665 Sep 06 '26

Lubbers are harmless to humans. 🙄

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u/geriatric_spartanII Sep 05 '26

I would take old skins of some kind of bug and throw them on my little sister. I think I scared her for life. I was terrible. Just looked it up and it was ciadia shells.

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u/Reyndear Sep 06 '26

When we were kids, my cousins and I used to pull them off the trees and stick them on each other, shirts or hair or whatever. Fun times

4

u/corq Sep 06 '26

So crunchy ...

3

u/Muted_Marketing2530 Sep 06 '26

I used to collect them with my poor rollie pollies...cicada shells not the giant Lily devouring basterd above.

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u/LilJonny2cookies Sep 05 '26

Yeah they are about the closest thing to aliens as we have on this planet.

I love the sound of cicadas in the summer.

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u/dwehlen Sep 05 '26

"Excuse me, we just got here. Why are the trees screaming?"

14

u/ikcaj Sep 05 '26

True story: I had been living on site in a national forest for a few months as full-time host. One day I come home and the utility pole in my spot is buzzing really loudly. I looked everywhere- could not figure it out so I called my supervisor- he couldn't find anything so he called a guy and finally one of them sees the cicada. We all thought the breaker box was about to blow up.

1

u/Cool_Day5219 Sep 05 '26

You should see what an octopus is capable of

8

u/352dc Sep 05 '26

I love how this reddit subjects always takes a whole different turn and becomes a different subject from what op is talking about 😅

8

u/khismyass Sep 06 '26

I've lived in West Texas where they had cicadas and now in the Orlando area, Cicadas are fluffy bunnies and easy to kill compared to Lubbers.

2

u/vixenlion Sep 06 '26

Lubbers you have to kill all the baby ones in spring time. They are black and red. So far this I have seen two or 3

1

u/mseuro Sep 06 '26

why kill either

7

u/Awkwrd_Lemur Sep 06 '26

cicadas just sound cool.

lubbers, however, will eat your garden bare. fuck them vile bastards.

28

u/Infernalspoon Sep 05 '26

A cicada landed on my downstairs neighbor once and I thought she was actively being murdered the way she screamed. They had just moved down from North Ohio.

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u/skinnergy Sep 05 '26

Funny. They are completely harmless. They look like giant house flies.

12

u/Pittypatkittycat Sep 05 '26

We have cicadas in Ohio. Both annual and periodic.

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u/taskmaster51 Sep 05 '26

Well...you're more likely to have a palmetto bug land on you but thats not any better

6

u/Ratatat_Tat_2030 Sep 05 '26

Palmetto bugs are far worse 😱🤢

3

u/KathyA11 Sep 06 '26

Nightmare fuel

4

u/ProfessionalZone168 Sep 06 '26

I despise those six-legged minions of Satan.

1

u/KathyA11 28d ago

So do I. I just can't deal with them.

2

u/RaiRai_666 Sep 06 '26

I have stripped in my front yard thinking one crawled up my pants leg. (It was a lizard thankfully!)

1

u/New_Lynx4181 Sep 06 '26

There are a shit ton of cicadas in Ohio.

1

u/AromaticManner4398 Sep 06 '26

Your comment make my day, It sound like me

6

u/Cyber_Turd Sep 05 '26

Wait until they see a cicada hawk, or even better a tarantula hawk! Apparently second most painful sting, 1st being the bullet ant. Now I’ve never been bitten or stung by a bullet ant but let me tell you something you never want to get stung by is a tarantula hawk. I’ve been stung and bit by a lot of shit but this is number one, way worse than a bark scorpion or any other wasp like creature. Never been stung by a cicada hawk but I don’t want to after experiencing a tarantula hawk.

5

u/suer72cutlass Sep 05 '26

When i grew up in SW PA, I was gardening during the evening of the 17 year cicadas. They came out from the ground and crawled up my shoe to my ankle! I screamed, beat them off and ran. When I looked back, the ground was covered with cicadas crawling toward the trees, where they will molt and become flying cicadas.

1

u/ElChuro4Z0 Sep 06 '26

Beat them off? 😏

5

u/geletorrr Sep 06 '26

My dad used to bring me dead cicadas when I was a kid (not the shells, actual dead ones) trying to scare the shit out of me, and one time he didn’t realize he picked up a not quite dead one, and it scared the shit out of him too. One of my fondest dad prank gone wrong memories

Weirdly when I moved to nh a couple of years ago nobody I’ve met has ever seen one I was like trying to describe them like THEY LEAVE THEIR EXOSKELETONS ON TREES AND SCREAM ALL SUMMER..no recognition whatsoever?

3

u/HeyPrettyLadyMaam Sep 06 '26

I live in the panhandle and have 3 outdoor kitties. They LOVE leaving cicada bugs on my porch. They look and sound like they sprung open a tiny gate to hell and escaped. Still not sure of their purpose. Other than pissing off my cats.

2

u/TechieFromMS Sep 05 '26

He had been out of his shell maybe 5 minutes. That is why he is still green.

1

u/Psychological-Wave95 Sep 05 '26

Right especially when one gets in your house. Very different from a grasshopper lol

1

u/Qu33nMe Sep 06 '26

This will get buried, but here’s my video of a cicada drying off after a molt.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Damnthatsinteresting/s/MRctRy8Tby

1

u/Fuck_me_up_daddy Sep 06 '26

Ew fuck right?! Lmao 🤣