By now, you’ve probably heard the buzz about Magicicada septendecim: a type of cicada that only appears every 17 years in unimaginably large numbers. Periodical cicadas like the Magicicada septendecim are unique to the United States, and occur in the northern midwest and eastern regions of the country. These cicadas have an interesting physiology and reproductive system, which is explored in our book of the week taken from the Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, Volume 89, Number 8: Morphology of the Insect Abdomen Part II: The Genital Ducts and Ovipositor, by R. E. Snodgrass.
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