This species shows up every seventeen years and the males make a hell of a lot of noise when they're looking for love. Fortunately I didn't have any around my house, although a lot of the areas around me had them.
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 ...
Willie, does this mean that cicada researchers and collectors will be laid off/furloughed for 17 years?!?
The cicada's were patchy in Louisville, some areas of town the roar was deafening. In my area we didn't hear a one.
I thought katydids were a kind of frog.
It'll then be Brood XI. They're Roman numeralled.
I didn't know what to expect from the much-ballyhooed monster swarm when I got here. Turned out that they're inoffensive, and not nearly so many as I was expecting with all of the dire predictions.
I do seem to see a lot of really flabby birds these days, though...
Unfortunately that article refers to "Brood X" as being the name of a particular species of cicada. As it turns out Brood X consists of at least 3 different species, each with a different eye color and vibratory frequency and pattern. Some do the morning, some are Noonish, and others the afternoon.
17 years from now the descendants of Brood X will be up and about and they will also be called Brood X.
We can hear.
This species shows up every seventeen years and the males make a hell of a lot of noise when they're looking for love. Fortunately I didn't have any around my house, although a lot of the areas around me had them.
The longing you bring to my heart. Chigger bites from rolling in the grass, collecting june bugs in a jar & the insect symphony at night. Back when frogs were in abundance & you laid in the arms of the mullberry tree eating berries until your fingers turned reddish purple. My biggest fears were being late to dinner, not being home by the time the (limited) street posts came on & getting my bare feet in the spokes of my bike. I was your Okie cousin.
What is a "brood"? Groups of cicadas that share the same emergence years are called broods. Charles Marlatt, a bureaucrat working for the Department of Agriculture, designated all the cicadas that emerged in 1893 and at 17-year intervals thereafter as Brood I. The cicadas that emerged in 1894 were called Brood II, and so on. The cicadas that will appear in 2004 belong to Brood X, which is the largest of the 17-year broods.
You already did source it. My bad.
"Trying to catch Crawdads with that ill fated piece of bacon fat used to wear us out, running up and down the fresh water Texas streams, string and bacon in hand."
Thanks for the memories.
MAn I remember ALL of which you speak. It makes me sad to see the progession..no the devolution..of things.
| won't emerge as adults until 2021
|
well, i don't hate em, though they have been ridiculously loud the past few years. but to me, the sound of cicadas at twilight has an almost comforting rhythm to it, as if mother nature were crooning a lullaby at the end of the day. couple that with an increase in fireflies these days and i'm back to an idyllic childhood memory...
You come on over and take a look at my trees and then tell me to get over it.
I'm getting to know it again as an adult. We have these really pretty neon-green flashing fireflies here. The first one that I saw here had gotten into the apartment, and was waslking up the wall next to the computer. Apart from being a bug in the house, I didn't know what it was. I grabbed something to smack it with. It took flight, right over my head, and emitted a cheery *blink* as it passed over me- sparing it the fate of some bugs that get into the apartment. I picked it up when it landed and carried it outside.
when we were kids, we used to run around outside at twilight and capture them in a jar, then watch with that innocent child wonder as they emitted their dying lights. it was just always something kids did around here, puncturing holes in the lid for air and then, of course, disappointed when the fireflies died.
as an adult, i would never dream of doing that.
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I don't understand why the things that fly around and make the flying-saucer noise are called "adults." These insects spend 99% of their lives underground (a good place for them) eating roots. Then they retire, grow a flying Winnebago, and go see what the world is like while trying to get laid. A week later they die. So I think the flying ones are actually the retired cicadas.