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Cicadas

Bottle or the Gun said:
I live in Maryland and the annual ones keep me awake at night and get me up early. Better than a rooster. The 17 yr ones have not come out yet around here, but except for the forest nearby, nothing here has been around for long enough, since the trees are 5 years old and the ground has been scraped for housing.
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I live in Maryland too, and I saw several of them for the first time today when I was in D.C. Yeah, their noisey, but man, I really think they're cool.
 
I dont like them buzzing into me and getting in my house, but I actually like the sound they make. Its very soothing, and can be used to fall asleep in a hammock.
 
We don't have them yet, but it rained a little tonight and more rain is expected tomorrow, so by Saturday they should be everywhere.

I'm anxious to take some photos of them as they emerge from their shells, and as adults. I'm also planning to make a painting or two of them.

I couldn't wait for them to come so I made some sketches from photos as a warm-up for the paintings. These were sketched on white drawing paper, but as you can see they came out a little darker in the photos below:

















cicada-sk3.JPG



This is the same as one of the sketches above, but I used the "text" setting on my camera, so it came out just pure black and white.

cicada.GIF
 
oooh, very nice drawings! Cicadas are my all time most favorite insect. i think their wings are just beautiful. I'm still waiting for fireflies here, so i'm sure it will be quite a while before we get any.

I really identify with cicadas:
-they're little and harmless, but make lots of noise
-they creep some people out

and, let's not forget
-they have sex only once in 17 years.:mad:
 
I remember as a kid catching the grubs and then putting them in a shoe box with some leaves and twigs and stuff and watch them transform.

We used to hunt for them around tree, looking for holes, into which we would pour water. The little fellas would float to the top.

And other fun kid stuff.

Collecting the empty shells from the trees and then putting them in your mum's knicker draw.:D
 
I'm sad I'll miss this. I live in California, and we don't get em.

I do remember some particularly strong years as a child in Texas.
 
roger said:
I'm in Belle View, which was put up in the 50's, I think. I also went walking along the Mt Vernon bike trail last night, and saw nothing then. I'm sure that'll change soon.

(hmm, wondering if the flood we had from hurricane Isabel would have killed 'em off. We were underwater for a few days when the Potomac overflowed.)
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Got any yet?

FWIW, my neighbors across the street have none, while I have dozens. But I have an oak tree about 100 years old in my front yard, and they have nothing more than ten years old, so their 1987 brood had nothing to lay eggs in.

Observation: It's a good thing Mother Nature made them so prolific, because they are apparently clumsy, slow, and stupid. A lot of the ones I've seen are lying on their backs, and once they get that way, if they can't grab onto a twig or something, they'll lie there flailing around until they die or get eaten (same thing, I guess). The few that I've seen flying don't do it very well; they're slow and have trouble maintaining altitude; I think it wouldn't require a great deal of skill on my part to shoot one down with a water pistol. And stupid? Lordie... I've righted a couple of the ones I've seen on their backs, and in seconds, they're on their backs again.

I've also noticed that the cute pictures you see in the newspaper are probably posed by professional cicada body doubles. I see a lot of them with stunted wings; they probably couldn't fly if they landed on a red-hot stove. And it probably wouldn't occur to them to jump off or do anything more intellectual than flop over on their backs.
 
some of the stunted wings may be because they aren't inflated yet. When the cicadas emerge, they have to pump up the wings and expand them with hemolymph. (bug blood:))

sometimes this never happens successfully, and you get stunted wings.

and it may help you to understand cicada cognition if you think of them more as genitalia with six legs and wings. :D
 
I see a lot of them on the sidewalk between my house and the metro. For some weird reason I'm compelled to pick them up and stick 'em on trees. Probably because I know I'll be washing a few of them off the front of my car later this month. I thought I saw one bouncing around on my back deck this evening but just before I picked it up I realized it was a big fat hornet.

They're really neat looking critters.

Cicadapalooza 2004 baby!
 
Uh_Clem said:
I see a lot of them on the sidewalk between my house and the metro. For some weird reason I'm compelled to pick them up and stick 'em on trees.
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Me too!!! Walking from the metro a lot of them I see on the side walks have been crushed. And when I see a live one on the ground I pick them up and put them on the tree. They'll only live for another two weeks, they deserve any help they can get.

Plus I just love the little critters. I think they are so cool. Even when I see them on trees I pick them up and play with them for a little bit. Then I place them back on the tree where they won't get hurt.
 
Originally posted by BPSCG

Martha, put the young'uns in the storm cellar, bar all the doors, pull the shades, and get me my shotgun...
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Might want to watch your field of fire there.

Cicadas could be hazardous to your health

"First there was the girl who fell off her bike fleeing a flying cicada. Then a boy trying to swat a cicada out of the air with a baseball bat instead hit his friend in the nose."

"We had a stab wound to the arm from a kid who was trying to kill a cicada on the arm of another child but unfortunately he was using a knife," Baker added.
 
Dymanic said:
Might want to watch your field of fire there.

Cicadas could be hazardous to your health
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"First there was the girl who fell off her bike fleeing a flying cicada. Then a boy trying to swat a cicada out of the air with a baseball bat instead hit his friend in the nose.

"We had a stab wound to the arm from a kid who was trying to kill a cicada on the arm of another child but unfortunately he was using a knife...

"Another kid tried to kick one under a lawn mower and cut his foot, and we saw a crush injury to the hand when a kid tried to put a cicada under the wheels of a moving car. "

And these kids - if they live - are going to grow up and pass their genes on to the next generation.

What was that about the cicadas being clumsy and stupid?
 
Dymanic said:
Cicadas could be hazardous to your health
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Keep an eye on your pets, too.

Pet warning issued regarding cicada season
The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) has issued a warning to pet owners to avoid allowing pets to eat cicadas during the upcoming swarm.

The HSUS said the insects are generally harmless, but pets that might "overindulge" could become sick from the cumulative effect.

"An overindulging pet who eats many cicadas and has more than one or two episodes of vomiting, or appears to be in pain, may need to see a veterinarian," HSUS stated.

The HSUS advised owners not to leave pets unsupervised outdoors during the swarming season, keep cats indoors, and contact a veterinarian if a pet shows signs of illness coinciding with the massed appearance of the insects.
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Nothing like finding a steaming pile of regurgitated cicadas on your living room carpet.
 
zakur said:
Nothing like finding a steaming pile of regurgitated cicadas on your living room carpet.
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I was just about to go grab something to eat.

Think I'll wait a while now.

Thanks for that, Zakur. :p
 
Drooper said:

...looking for holes, into which we would pour water. The little fellas would float to the top.
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I just tried that with a cicada hole, I poured 16 ounces of water in and the hole still didn't fill up. There were a lot of holes under this tree and I guess after 17 years they must have quite a tunnel system. Probably would have worked better with a hose.
 
Cicadas started emerging here around the middle of last week. There were a bunch of them outside my apartment climbing up the walls and sitting drying off their wings. They seem to spend most of their time sitting completely motionless which is a little creepy because it's hard to tell if they are alive or not. I want to kick them to see if they move, but I don't want them flying at me. I saw one outside my door yesterday that appeared to have stunted or at least curled up wings. I thought maybe they just hadn't completely unfolded yet, but this morning he was still there and his wings are still messed up. 17 years in the ground and when he finally emerges his wings are messed up. Not much of a life. I've also seen a few overturned cicadas waving their legs in the air and struggling to right themselves.
I'd imagine that human development must have a devastating effect on the 17 year cicadas, but my apartment complex is probably only 5-10 years old and we are still seeing quite a few of them, probably a lot less than we would have done though.
 
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