Cicada

What a start-up. Amazing creature. Great capture. Thanks for sharing.

Your cicada is beautiful! I love the markings!

Latemeria: That is a beautiful creature.
I've seen lots of cicadas but not one with a "face" on it like the one I photographed. I let it crawl up on my finger so I could move it off the ground before it got squashed by my horses! And I realized it photographed much better on my finger than on the tree, where it was very well camouflaged.

Speaking of emerging cicadas, I simply must share this photo: http://www.marietta.edu/~biol/biomes/ima.... Makes me want to find some eclosing cicadas!

No, you're not wrong Latimeria, that's exactly what is happening, and why the abdomen is still so large (it's full of fluid). I've watched cicadas emerge before, starting with splitting the exoskeleton. It's very cool.

Beautiful! That is some amazing coloration. I do believe the wings look like that because the hemolymph hasn't been pumped through the wing veins yet. (Correct me if I'm wrong, I'm still trying to get a grasp on the finer points of insect physiology.)

It's a cicada just unfurling its wings after morphing out of its last exoskeleton.

I like that it was on your finger

On second consideration, possibly a cicada?

Some kind of locust? I let it crawl onto my finger and then let it crawl off up on the trunk of a pine tree out of reach of my dog. Its wings seemed to be still unfurling, as if it had recently hatched.