Spring is finally here, and so are the cicadas — by the trillions! And while we all recognize their distinctive mating call, there’s an interesting fact about them we may not be aware of: those little buggers pee with a vengeance.
Dr. M. Saad Bhamla and doctoral student Elio J. Challita wrote an article on the subject and tell The New York Times cicadas hold the record for “strongest urine jet stream” of any studied animal close to their size.
Cicadas drink 300 times their weight in xylem, or plant sap, every day and can shoot their urine about 10 feet a second, per The Times.
Still don’t believe it? The nice folks at the Georgia Tech College of Engineering have been kind enough to provide a video of the insects emptying their bladders.