Locust cicada is a generic term for cicada pests. Cicadas belong to the order Hemiptera which generically encircles insects alike leafhoppers and plant lice. This then separates the genus of locusts. Locusts is an informal yet a generic term for grasshoppers under the migratory class of the order Orthoptera. The term locust at times is used to classify katydids and crickets with collective attributes as the migratory leafhoppers. The term locust cicada is a colloquial name implemented for the cicadas since they are considered pests like the locust family.

The name locust cicada or singularized as cicada is literally derived from the Latin word cicada which means buzzer. In English there has been no proper word accounted to substitute cicada as well as in Germany, making Germany and the English countries adapt the name cicada. In Greece, the name is locally termed as tettix and modernized as tzitzikas.

What mainly digress the singular term cicada into a collective term locust cicada is its physical orientation and habitat need. Totally unrelated to locusts, which mainly are grasshoppers, yet cicadas are of close genus with spittlebugs and leafhoppers. Since spittlebugs and leafhoppers are collectively locusts, it then carries the name cicada to be informally reclassified as locusts.

There are about 2,500 species of locust cicadas around the globe. Moreover, there are still too many which remains to be unclassified due to the close characteristics of some physical and habitation attributes to different genera, classes and families. A locust cicada normally inhabits on places with tropical climate setting and with alternating temperatures. These insects are prominently known to be the most recognized of the locust family since they produce distinct and amplified sounds.

Cicadas, being locusts, characterize the pest causality that in effect they deliver to humans. Although locust cicadas are non-threatening in which it does not sting in an offensive and voluntary act but there may be circumstances that locust cicadas sting when they see threat to its burrows and nests. Also, they might mistakenly think a human arm or leg as trees and plants from which they feed.

Alike other locusts cicadas also feed from trees and plants. This nature does not compensate such reason since they commonly feed on cultured plants, fields and trees which are pejorative to humans. These insects feed through a lengthy proboscis within their heads which roots food from tree saps. Another vexing point for humans is when they got stung with a newly fed cicada, the sap juices could be injected into a human body and is totally painful at some point yet only pain is inflicted and it never can be harmful to the human structure. This stinging act of locust cicadas is not automatic since it needs to land and settle on a human’s body part before it stings.

Locust cicada causes damage to cultured and cultivated shrubs, crops, plants and trees. These insects scar parts of the plant which degenerate the completion of a hundred percent photosynthesis. Amidst the pestilence which locust cicadas can cause there are some countries that makes cicadas as food. There are people who make dishes out of cicadas from countries like Burma, Malaysia, Latin America, China and Greece. The shells of locust cicadas also serve a major part in the pharmaceutical industry for the creation of synthetic drugs in China.