[ddc]

I had noticed my dog hanging out under several trees in the back yard and hadn't really thought about it, but my mom said she was probably eating the cicadas.
I caught her last night chowing down on some in a bush that's low to the ground. She seems to love them.
I found this article that says that the only problem might be vomiting or diarrhea since they can't digest the exoskeleton. http://www.wlwt.com/r/2983745/detail.html
The article compares them to potato chips - no one can eat just one - lol !
They must be pretty tasty

[Laffalot]

OK - I'm stumped. What are cicadas?

[ddc]

They are insects that only come out of the ground every so-many-years to mate and then die.
Where I live, the 13 yr cicadas are 'singing' and flying now.
Here's a photo my hubby took of one on our deck:

[saef]

Mmm. Crunchy!

One of my indelible childhood memories involves finding the complete, intact caramel-brown exoskeleton of one of these big bugs attached to a pine tree in my best friend Michael's back yard.

It looked like the entire bug.

We marveled over it for quite some time. God, I couldn't have been much older than eight or nine. And I can still see it in my mind.

[iHeartU]

Eww...I'll never look at a potato chip the same way again. And, about dogs eating cicadas, my dogs eat flies...I once had a dog who tried to eat bees. I have a cat who eats spiders. WTF is up with my animals eating bugs??? I feed them. They ALWAYS have food but they want to eat the bugs. Meh. Go figure.

[4xcharm]

My dogs won't eat them if they are too "fresh". They have to be completely dried-out and "crunchy". That empty casing attached to trees is the baby cicada's shell. The back splits open, and a beautiful pale green flying insect emerges. I've watched them gather their strength while their blood(?) fills their bodies and the veins on the wings. As they breathe, they darken....then fly away to join the sounds of summer.

[Aclai4067]

My cat is now on restriction from going outside because he's been throwing up cicadas every day!

[mhill0823]

I Hate these stupid cicadas!! As i type I can hear them over the tv outside!!I can't wait until they are GONE!!!!
but be careful with your pet eating them. They made my dog really sick because he was eating them! Gave him a tummy virus this past weekend!
My vet said some animals it never affects and some it makes sick! My little dog eats them too and she is fine!

[Artgirl23]

My pups do that. And they eat June bugs like candy!

[tdiprincess]

I never realized animals would eat them. Guess it makes sense LOL. Some of my favorite memories growing up were with my dad helping me find some shells. At one point I think I had a stash of 6 or so. We were always looking for them!

I personally find their sounds relaxing. It's part of summer that makes me feel comfortable and all warm inside because it's summer!

[shcirerf]

Animals have an animal perspective on things. My dogs are kinda la la about the cicadas and june bugs. The will fuss with the June bugs, but don't eat them. However a few years ago I fostered a Dalmation for a few weeks, that went ape s**t over June bugs. I finally had to confine him in the house in the early evening, because he got all fired up and had anxiety issues from trying to catch them all and tummy issues from eating them.

[kaplods]

Originally Posted by iHeartU

Eww...I'll never look at a potato chip the same way again. And, about dogs eating cicadas, my dogs eat flies...I once had a dog who tried to eat bees. I have a cat who eats spiders. WTF is up with my animals eating bugs??? I feed them. They ALWAYS have food but they want to eat the bugs. Meh. Go figure.

You could as easily ask, "WTF is up with some humans not eating bugs?".

Animals eating bugs isn't the oddity. Humans (actually only some) deciding NOT to eat them is. Humans have eaten insects for millions of years, and people in many cultures still do (and not just because they can't find anything better to eat, but because they like the taste of them).

Maybe we wouldn't need so many pesticides, if the pests were seen as food, not as stuff to be killed in order to keep them from eating what we want to.

Learning to eat bugs would be hard I think, because of the social taboos. Even the ones that reportedly taste good, would be hard to eat, just because we're not used to it (I would like to taste the ants that supposedly taste like lemonade, and the tiny beetles that supposedly taste like tutti- fruity).

I always loved having a cat that liked eating spiders and other insects, because I'm a bit squeamish about killing bugs. I hate the feel of crunching them between tissue. Whenever I saw a spider, I'd sick my kitty on it (even if I had to lift her up over my head to do it).

Our current kitty isn't much help in that regard. Not only does she NOT eat bugs, she's afraid of them, so if she sees a bug she'll cry and yowl until my husband kills it (I'm not going to do it). If it's walking on the floor, she'll actually back up as she cries. I've never seen an animal afraid of bugs before.