US braced for monster cicada swarm. Where were you 17 years ago?

"Brood X is likely to be the largest insect emergence on Earth," said Keith Clay, a cicada expert at Indiana University at Bloomington.

Starting this week, across much of the eastern United States, from Georgia north to southern New York and as far west as Illinois, the cicadas will emerge from their 17 years of sucking on tree roots underground to engage in a two-week orgy of calling, mating, laying eggs and then dying.

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/040512/325/etbqw.html


Me Book

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I hadda ask . . . .

Sea turns red? Check (happened off Florida in the Gulf, IIRC)

Which ones are left? Isn't there a rain of frogs or something?

Might be time for an impromtu northern vacation.

I drove through this 17 years ago (the last infestation). I was in Kentucky, Tennessee and Alabama on a trip after my graduation from high school. Weird...I remember it vividly. Going to a rest stop was like running a gauntlet...the damn things were EVERYWHERE. One of them even died underneath the windshield wiper of my car and it's dead eyes were staring up at me as I drove.

The highway was slick with them...memories...ewwww! It sounds like this time's gonna be even worse. Good luck to all in those regions...

Wow. I didn't know it was a 17-year thing....strange.

same place I was 17 years ago.

It's funny at work telling all these transplanted people about it, I don't think they understand how many cicadas are coming.

only spotted a few flyers, but a lot of holes and shells. I was 10 the last time they came.

...it's hard to imagine until you're in the middle of it.

They are 17 year LOCUSTS. That's the common name. Always has been.

Biologically, they are 'Cicadas'. Fine. I'm going to go out and put screen around the Quercus Alba and the Acer rubra. And the Canis Familiaris will follow me around.

Some biology profs convinced some news anchors to make a big deal about using the 'proper' biological name. Bullshit. They are f'ing LOCUSTS.

Biblical in proportion.

It's part of the Disneyfication of culture. Common sense and wisdom must be displaced by offical corporate NewSpeak.

Don't get me started.

My mom (southerner born and bred) called 'em locusts, and so do I.

Cicada is a more poetic term I guess? Same thing. They eat everything green they can get their little teeth on. Except things they don't like. :-)

our house or for about a block around us, but the house had been built about 10 years before, as had the rest of our neighborhood. apparently the bulldozing, etc. had killed the underground cicadas as earth was moved and trees were removed.

But in the untouched areas around us, it looked like it was kneedeep in cicadas.

We're in Eastern Tennessee now, ready for this year's emergence! Again, relatively new houses but interspersed with lots of undeveloped land. I think it's gonna be really interesting!

Not to mention really, really noisy!

because it's going to get noisy. they're all over the place here in maryland.

put me on the list.

the last time they showed up....I assume im in for a pretty nasty surprise this summer....then again i live in north nj near NYC, maybe it wont be so bad

The wall of toxic pollution will kill them before they can enter Manhattan.

Sometimes, I do love city life.

them are on the same 17 year cycle......

I personally like the noisy critters. And if you can grab 'em (in about a week here in eastern Oklahoma) right as they start to climb the trees, they're delicious! Taste just like shrimp. Or chicken. :D

(I'm serious)

the 17 year ones are a different species

Taste like bugs! eewww!

a year with a significant number of 'em. Anyhow, crustaceans (like shrimp and crabs) are basically just real big bugs that like water. :D

But I ain't eating the land based ones. :)

"Now John wore clothing of camel’s hair with a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey."

how many "species" of cicadas are there? Does someone claim that an entire species has maintained this alleged 17 year cycle with no irregularity for millennia? Sorry, I don't buy it...

But then I'm an engineer, not an entomologist, so I could be wrong.

and the group of insects I study are the cicada's closest "relatives". yeah, strange things do happen

:D

edit: I love DU, knowledge is here for the taking!

http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=2647052

A snippet (note the terminology of the "so-called periodical cicadas"):

Though Brood X is the largest, it is only one of a number of broods of so-called periodical cicadas that emerge at intervals of either 13 or 17 years. This is the period of time that the cicada nymphs remain underground, feeding on sap from tree roots until their biological alarm-clocks go off. When that happens they all simultaneously mature, emerge, mate, lay eggs if female, and then die.

Most biologists believe that the odd lifestyle of periodical cicadas is an example of a survival strategy called “predator satiation”: the insects emerge in such prodigious quantities that predators cannot possibly eat them all. And their curious prime-numbered lifecycles may be another anti-predator strategy.

And now I'm glad I didn't pursue a career in cicadology, takes a damn lifetime to observe a few generations! :D

But they're tasty, no matter what. ;-)

Actually, I looked it up last night because I didn't know about the 17-year thing. Very weird!

...but let's just say there is something special about BIG TIME emergences.

I've told many a person about my earlier experience with one of them there 'mother of all hatches.' They look at me like I'm from Mars.

It's something to behold, and I'm glad I've seen it. It's truly an amazing thing. And noisy (yet musical). It seems awful quiet once they're gone. :-)

in the paper they described them as looking to pets like "a yardfull of chicken nuggets". They don't reach Texas.

I can't wait for my dog and cat to drag them into the house by the hundreds, whole or regurgitated.

:puke:

I remember the last "Brood X" "outbreak"....Sheesh, things were noisy for a week or so, and my daughter spent all day bringing us handfuls of "crunchy bug shells", and we spent a few evenings sitting and watching a cicada complete its metamorphesis...

The way they're hyping this, you'd think we were gonna be over-run by a million Shelobs or something...

Be careful! Cicadae have been known to carry away anorexics and small children! Oh, wait...that's Michigan mousquitos that do that...

but I'll miss the swarm..too far west

the one chosen to lead them to the Rapture.

That's about all I remember about the last cicada brood here in Maryland. (I was about 8 years old at the time.) Guess I'll find out soon just how much of this is media hype, 'cause the little guys should be here any day now!