Posted on 07/10/2004 5:26:05 PM PDT by Willie Green
COLLEGE PARK, Md. (AP) - Their droning love songs have faded, the skies are free of their tumbling flights and the carcasses that littered sidewalks have washed away. The Brood X cicadas, vintage 2004, are gone.
But in the trees of several mid-Atlantic and Midwest states, the next generation is just beginning its 17-year life. Within the next few weeks, billions of eggs deposited in tree branches will hatch and rain down tiny white nymphs no bigger than sesame seeds with beady red eyes.
They will burrow through the dirt to tree roots and won't emerge as adults until 2021.
(Excerpt) Read more at lasvegassun.com ...
FYI
I think Oprah did a show on this last week but I thought it was just a "female problem".
So just what is a cicada?
Need a good laugh...go to Fox News right now and notice the similarity between the lead photograph and the one of Will Farrell. :)
I think John Secada went underground in 1992.
Where I grew up we called them "Kadie did's", is my redneck showing?
that's really weird. i live in northwest ohio and the last few years, the cicadas have been so loud at eventide you had to SHOUT to be heard above them;...but i hear nothing...nothing...i hadn't thought of it until i read this...
Within the next few weeks, billions of eggs deposited in tree branches will hatch and rain down tiny white nymphs no bigger than sesame seeds with beady red eyes.
Now if that it is a happy thought.....
Those things are murder on small fruit trees and shrubs, and many deciduous tree branches under 1/2 in thick. They killed this years growth on alot of trees around here. They have a very sharp beak and they rip branches longways. I had to cover up 12 young trees with nylon netting. I still had to go around several times a day and kill the ones that managed to get inside the netting for about a month.
SW PA near Pittsburgh and I've only hear one so far this year. I guess they missed us...or ours are on a different cycle...I HATE 'EM!!
Carp! I thought we were gonna die!!!
We shouldn't see him till 2009 if those calculations hold true. I'm betting thats a good thing.
Hiya Staff,
I am also a Californian, I moved to Virginia just in time for the Big Swarm. Cicadas are an insect that is typically about two-thirds the size of one of my fingers, has wings and big red eyes. You can hear them in the summertime in the South- the sound like someone trying to start a balky weed-whacker. They look like a cross between a Yellowjacket and one of those giant, evil horseflies that we had at Lejeune. They're pretty big- you don't want to run into one on your scooter with an open-face helmet. They're also utterly harmless. I tried to photograph one for my webpage, but he took up the Cicada equivalent of a martial-arts stance- got real defensive on me, so I left him alone. Pretty cool little beasties, although the green fireflies we have here are still my favorite bug.
I'm not sure but I do know they taste like chicken...
Uh, they're not gone yet. Around here we get an annual vintage, too.
We had a local density of about 7,000,000 per acre around here, and no net ever made would have kept them out of the trees.
It'll be just another day to me.
Any chance we can get the Dims to follow the example of these Cicadas?
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