Macro Monday - Cicada Wings

Here I was, all ready to post a set of photos I took this past weekend of a butterfly and a bee. I'll save those for later, because I have a fun little friend to share instead.

I found this dude about 30 minutes ago as I was trying to hang a swing from a tree in our backyard. I saw something tremble out of the corner of my eye and discovered a cicada shell. I've seen those before, but this one had a whitish looking thing coming out of it. Since I know nothing about cicadas, I thought maybe it was one that died while he was trying to molt. And then I saw it tremble again and realized it wasn't dead. Oh, no! This baby was reborn! So I quick grabbed my camera and took about 60 photos of him from every possible angle.

The ones I want to share here are the first one I took, where his wings are all shriveled up and stumpy.

Then as he emerged and the wings dried off, they spread into a pretty glorious sight. (As glorious as a bug can get, for me.)

The wings are so thin and gossamer, and truly beautiful. God's handiwork.