Some cicadas can live underground for seventeen years.
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culture
Cicadas are a classic emblem in Chinese poetry, standing for summer heat and fleeting life. 蝉联 (chánlián, "to hold onto a title uninterrupted") comes from the cicada's continuous singing.
虫 originally depicted a coiled snake but became the catch-all radical for insects, worms, and small creatures. Its presence flags 蝉 immediately as a bug, joining family members 蜂蝶蚊蚁.
单 supplies the sound (dān drifted to chán). The same phonetic also drives 弹婵阐殚. A faint semantic echo lingers — cicadas sing alone in summer trees, each one a solo voice in the canopy.
