The Cicadas Are Coming Summer of 2024

[heavyhitterokra]

Rare Duel Emergence of Two Species Could Awaken a Trillion Bugs!

The following is an excerpt from an article by NPR and the Good News Outlet, By Andy Corbley, edit by Ron Cook:

No one alive today will see it again—the convergence of two cicada broods that will practically shake the Midwest with their chirping.

The appearance of cicadas en mass is one of the most amazing natural phenomena of the insect world, and we Americans are uniquely positioned to witness it. But this spring, the synchronized emergence of Brood 13 and Brood 19 will fill the air from Iowa to Virginia with over a trillion bugs, an event not seen since Thomas Jefferson’s day.

1803 was the last time that this convergence occurred, and it involves the periodic cicadas of the 13-year brood and the 17-year brood,

It’s not true that the cicadas are born the way we normally see them (With a full set of wings). They actually live their whole lives as nymphs underground and then burrow up to the surface and shed their old bodies (sort of like a caterpillar turning into a butterfly) as part of a mass breeding and egg-laying frenzy.  After emerging from the ground, the adult cicadas only live another 4 to 6 weeks before they lay their eggs and parish to start the next cycle. 

Entomologists estimate that the two broods together will number more than 1 trillion bugs, enough bugs that if placed head to tail would reach to the moon and back 33 times.  (Over 13,200,000 miles!)

The two broods will overlap in Iowa and Illinois, and the 17-year cicadas, confusingly called Brood 19 (XIX), will extend into Arkansas, Northeast Oklahoma, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia, with a few also popping up in Louisiana.

The next time these two will emerge together will not be until the year 2245.

“It’s pretty much this big spectacular macabre Mardi Gras,” Jonathan Larson, an entomologist at the University of Kentucky, told NPR. “It’s a lot of singing, lots of paramours pairing up and then lots of dying.”

Smithsonian Magazine provides this interesting tidbit about cicadas; that the decibel level of so many cicadas mating can reach the same as a motorcycle or chainsaw passing by your house.

They will emerge this spring, and shuffle off their mortal coils in July, during which time they will not sting, bite, envenom, or pass disease onto any human. Their emergence will aerate the soils of woodlands, and their bodies will provide such a smorgasbord for wildlife, that even herbivorous animals like deer will begin to eagerly toss back these tasty morsels.

[woodeye]

Cool!👍

The buzzword around here is locusts, I can't remember why we always called them locusts instead of calling them cicadas.

Looking forward to seeing this big bug get-together, as you noted it won't happen again for ages, kinda like low prices at the grocery store. Oh wait, that won't ever happen again...

[heavyhitterokra]

My grandparents called them locusts too. We kids called them "Jar Flies". I don't know why no one ever called them cicadas?

When I was a kid, there was no such thing as air conditioning.  We slept with the windows opened.  I remember going out there at night and throwing rocks at the trees to get the jar flies to shut up so we could get some sleep.

Nowadays, we have to open the front door just for the privalege of hearing them.  How times have changed.

[woodeye]

I reckon it's whatever we were first taught a bug or critter was when we were growing up. Just like dragonflies, we only knew them as "snake doctors". Must be a southern thing.

I can remember tying thread to locusts and letting them fly around on a leash. We used to shoot at them with BB guns too. Seems like every night that we had a Coleman lantern lit, we'd get one or two locusts that would fly down out of the trees and crash into the lantern.