Giant, Screaming…Fly? Sat, Jun 27, 2009 at 1:58 AM
I snapped these pics of what I assumed was a (giant) dead fly. It is approximately the length of a Bic lighter (a technical measurement here in Georgia). Later in the evening, when I went to take better photos, we found it stuck to the bottom of the door frame. When I tried to sweep it off, I could see its little legs grabbing the door frame and realized it was alive.
I started to close the back door, and when the fly ended up between the door and the threshold, it let out a LOUD, long scream. We finally pushed the door shut, and every time we got close to the not so little guy, who was now flying around the house, it would start screaming again. We decided it was suffering and snuffed it out…but what in the world was it? Its underside was a bright yellow, almost like a glowing lightning bug. Googling giant screaming fly hasn’t gotten me very far. Thanks–
J. Campbell
Athens, GA
Hi J.,
Your Giant Screaming Fly is actually a Cicada. We are not certain what species of Cicada you have though. Certain Cicadas are considered to be the loudest insects. The scream is actually used by the male Cicada to attract a mate.
I’m guessing that they recently moved into an area populated by these guys, or the cicadas are spreading, because it’s kinda hard to coexist with these guys and not know about them…
We found the same thing on our back porch….
In South Africa you get a few strange bugs but one of these little buggers was bashing against the window screaming like an infuriated winged banshee. It was about the size of my thumb. Eventually it gave up and started doing that normal high pitched noise. Creepy
I saw my neighbors catching it and they decided to keep it but every time it gets grabbed my ears are killing me
This is a neotibicen tibicen aka swamp cicada. The subspecies is neotibicen tibicen tibicen.