I find these staggered cicada cycles fascinating!
Article: “The males vibrate membranes on the sides of their bodies to produce a song — potentially louder than a plane in a chorus — that attracts mates, according to The New York Times.”
Me: “How loud is a plane in a chorus?”
Not as loud as a trillion cicadas, apparently.
We had a massive brood in Indianapolis a few years ago, and it seemed like my neighborhood was ground zero. The noise they made was staggering. I can believe it when they say the brood size is so big due to prey sedation (predators will have more than enough to eat, and leave plenty left over to breed). Not only are the numbers staggering, but so is their complete inability to avoid any threat or danger. They’re slow and clumsy, and will fly to any surface taller than a blade of grass.
The map looks like Indiana will be getting 2 broods this summer, but not in my area.
Which map are you looking at? Cite for the rest of us?
Prey Satiation? Prey Saturation? Or is that Predator satiation / saturation?
Thanks - it’s satiation. Thanks autocomplete!
I thought prey sedation was when the predators got so stuffed with food they became somnolent.
What’s interesting is that a 13 year brood and a 17 year brood are going to come out together. They meet somewhere in northern Illinois. This happens only once in every 221 years. So it happened in 1803 and will not happen again till 2245.
The local birds are gonna LOVE it!
I was living on the forested exurb edge of Saint Louis MO when we had a major emergence back around 2003-2006. Not a dual emergence, but a big brood nevertheless.
It was soo wonderful! So much noise. So many deceased cicadas everywhere. So many family dogs gorging themselves on the deadfall then barfing everywhere. I loved it.
Sadly, we don’t have cicadas (much) here in FL.
Man - it is gonna be LOUD around here!
LAST heavy brood a couple of years ago, my eldest granddaughter was quite the pain the way she panicked over them. At 9, I hope she has grown out of that.
Finally, a brood war! I’ve been waiting over 25 years for this.
Pray sedation is what happens when the sermon goes on too long
I think it was 17 years ago (but maybe 13) that we heard some deep, unholy sound coming from the front yard. It’d go for less than a minute and then stop for a couple of minutes, then repeat. Over and over. Eventually our eyes adjusted to the point where we could see that our tiny, fluffy cat had a cicada on the front lawn. She would stuff it in her mouth and it would start buzzing. We were hearing the thing resonating her skull. She’d then spit it out and it would crawl around too wet to buzz or fly away. When it started to dry out and get interesting, she’d stuff it in her mouth again. Hopefully at least one of them was having a good time.
I first heard of this this week, when talking to someone in Chicago. Apparently Chicago is going to be ground zero of a major brood eruption. Looking at the Wikipedia article, it doesn’t look like they come to Southern Ontario, which I find surprising… but then I don’t remember anything like this happening around here.
The Brood XIII emergences in Chicago seem to mark major stages of my life. They were emerging the summer that I was born. Seventeen years later they appeared when I was in high school, preparing to leave home for college. Seventeen years after that was their third appearance, when I, having since moved to California, married and divorced, was visiting Chicago with my 7-year-old son. (He loved the cicadas). Seventeen years later was their fourth appearance, in the middle of my marriage to my second wife, although I didn’t actually witness that one. And now comes the fifth appearance, 10 years after my second wife’s death, two years into my third marriage. I don’t think I’ll be going to Chicago to see them this summer though. If I live to see the sixth one, I’ll be in my mid-80s and that will almost certainly be the last in my lifetime.
Or a love fest. We could get a whole new brood:
I don’t know why this tickles me so. I can picture them marching out of the ground with pilums and helmets in huge hordes like the Roman army. Onward Hemipterian soldiers!
Seeing this thread makes me wish I still had my Archie McPhee Lucky Cicada Keychain. When you pressed the button on its underside, not only did its eyes light up, but it made the most annoying sound ever!