Periodical Cicadas to Emerge in May

Associated Press ^ | Fri Mar 12, 1:24 PM ET | DAN LEWERENZ

[Pharmboy]

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. - After 17 years of relative quiet, Mother Nature is bringing the noise. Periodical cicadas, a species of the grasshopper-like insects best known for the scratching, screeching "singing" of the males, will emerge this May, filling forests in more than a dozen states. Almost as abruptly as they arrive, they'll disappear underground for another 17 years.

"Why do certain insects take only one year to develop, and others take two or three? It's just part of their genetic programming," said Greg Hoover, senior extension entomologist for Penn State University.

There are at least 13 broods of 17-year cicadas, plus another five broods that emerge every 13 years. The last to emerge, Brood IX, was seen last spring in parts of West Virginia, Virginia and North Carolina.

This year, it's time for Brood X, the so-called "Big Brood," to surface. Its range stretches from Georgia, west through Tennessee and to isolated pockets of Missouri, north along the Ohio Valley and into Michigan, and east into New Jersey and New York.

"This is one of those years we kind of dread," said Paris Lambdin, professor of entomology and plant pathology at the University of Tennessee. "We had an emergence a couple years ago around Nashville, but nothing like what we expect this one will be."

No other periodical cicada covers so much ground. And with hundreds of them per acre in infested areas, the noise will be hard to miss.

"In 1987, coming back from the University of Maryland on Interstate 95, when you drove through a wooded area you could hear the insects," Hoover said. "This would have been mid to late June, with the windows down, and then it would shut down when you got to a field or a non-wooded area."

In rare years, a 13-year brood can emerge to add its collective voice to that of a 17-year brood.

"Out in the Midwest is where things get really hairy," Hoover said. "Missouri, Illinois, Indiana have combinations of 17-year-brooded individuals and 13-year-brooded individuals, and they can have overlap."

There's no question that the class of 2004 will be a nuisance. The cicadas will make plenty of noise, and adults are poor fliers that tend to bump into things.

But as swarms go, these cicadas aren't that bad. Adults don't feed on leaves, so they won't strip the trees, but they do lay their eggs in twigs.

"The females, once mated, will lay pockets of eggs along twigs that will cause structural weakening of those twigs," Hoover said. "Eventually they may drop off and fall to the ground, the nymphs will drop off and fall to the soil, and that's where this species is for the next 17 years."

On the Net:

PSU College of Agricultural Sciences Periodical Cicada Fact Sheet: http://www.ento.psu.edu/extension/factsheets/periodical_cicada.htm

[Pharmboy]

It's going to be a noisy spring/summer, 'round these parts...

[Arkinsaw]

I love the noise. Its never annoying to me, just a welcome part of spring. If you get tired of it just yell real loud and they will stop......for a few seconds.

[WVNan]

As I was driving to and from church Sunday evening I could swear I was hearing Chicadas, but according to this it's too early. I was hearing the classic stop and go noise as I passed certain areas. My first thought was Chicadas, but I also thought it's too early for them here. Weird. I've always kinda liked to hear them. Reminds me of my grandparents place when I was a child.

[stylin19a]

Where they went underground 17 years ago, may now be a stip mall.

[WayneM]

You were probably hearing frogs that live in ditches along the road - singing for a mate. They have been out of hibernation here in N. Alabama for the past few weeks.

[Antoninus]

Same here in Jersey & Eastern PA. I wonder if the cicada-killer wasps are going to be around again too....

[Antoninus]

Biggest, ugliest darn wasps I ever saw. And sounded like a B-17 in flight too. I was scared to death of 'em as a kid.

[old-ager]

I love them too.

> If you get tired of it just yell real loud and they will stop......for a few seconds.

Did not know that!

[quantim]

Holy cicada Batman! I went on a camping trip circa '81-82 out east and the noise was so shrill and deafening had to sleep in the car. A Maryland State Park officer explained the scenerio. The screaming went on for hundreds of miles back to Michigan.

[null and void]

KEWL!

[stylin19a]

agh..stip=strip

[Atchafalaya]

That's one of those big wasps that nest in the ground. I got really pissed last year when I saw one going hard after a hummingbird at my feeder; no more in my yard!

[Atchafalaya]

BTW they are a WHOLE lot more manuverable than a B 17, but I'm sure you already know that.

[WVNan]

Nope, weren't frogs. I know frogs. It was definitely the sound of Chicadas. That constant whirring metalic sound like a million chains rattling.

[Pharmboy]

Memories of childhood for me too. That's what's so neat about them: because they only come out every 17, the times and places we hear them have distinct memories.

As a kid I remember seeing the empty husk of one on a tree afetr it molted...never forgot that ghostly appearance, and didn't know what it was until I took bio in high school years later.

[metesky]

The Mashpee area of Cape Cod has a large brood of 13 year Cicadas. Quite a sight. Disgusting smashed bugs on every windshield, roads littered with the dead.

The strange part of it is that, at least the Cape ones (I've seen 'em twice), they go from dawn to dusk and then a sudden silence. Very eerie.

[TC Rider]

I'm sorry, I don't subscribe to periodicals.

[mewzilla]

I was in NC the last time the little buggers came for a visit. Thge exterior of my sis-in-law's apt. complex was covered with the darn things. The stairways were like a scene from a creature feature. ICK.

[pageonetoo]

I was wondering when someone would beat me to that thought! I was just too lazy to type it, this beautiful, sunny saturday, in West Virginia, almost heaven! It is enough to click!

[proud American in Canada]

"this beautiful, sunny saturday, in West Virginia, almost heaven! "

Wow, I love that post--you've created a picture in my mind that's so clear I can almost feel the warm breeze!

Happy Saturday to you! and to everyone on this board! :)