Posted on 06/06/2025 9:02:41 AM PDT by hardspunned
I was a teenager the first time I remember the cicadas engulfing Maryland. Big, noisy bugs with red eyes that were absolutely everywhere. They were in my grandparents pool, inside my best friend's truck, flying into windows and doors and invading everything with their incessant noise. The biggest problem with cicadas isn't their presence on the trees, it's the skull-throbbing noise they produce non-stop. Their constant buzz can be as loud as a chainsaw. As someone who gets overstimulated by too much noise, it's crucial to reach for a quality pair of noise-cancelling headphones to drown out the cacophonous racket.
We're in the thick of cicada season brood XIV (14) now -- from May through at least June, these noisy bugs will climb up from the ground and swarm in a number of eastern states before they mate, die off, and disappear only to emerge again years later. We won't see Brood XIV again, which is appearing this year, until 2037.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnet.com ...
When my son was young we were outside and the cicadas were in full force. He asked me why they were laughing at him.
OK - this is really off the wall, but our choir sings a motet by Anton Bruckner, “Locus Iste” - and our choirmaster always refers to it as “The 17 year Locus”.
I remember them up where I lived back then. About 5 minutes north of the Balto. Beltway.
It’s one of those things - like an eclipse, a starling murmuration, or the Northern Lights - that astound one with the beauty inherent in simply being alive and conscious on this little blue planet...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0sE10zUYyY
Definitely remember 1987, and 2004. 2021, not so much.
Yep. You got that right!
Funky. Thanks
Brood X comes out in 2038 just as they did in 2021, 2004, 1987, 1970, and previous years. The cicadas out now are from different brood. These creatures live most of their lives safe from predators underground. Bit they come out for one purpose and that is to mate and then harvest their fertilized eggs into the ground so the next generation can live on & those who have mated will die off and all these of this brood will nourish birds and other creatures.
Due to their generations being prime number of years they have no natural predators. Thus they freely roam without anyone being naturally inclined to eat them and make lots of noise as they court and mate to prepare things for their next generation.
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