17-year Cicada

[AmazingBlender]

I was actually in D.C several years back when they came out ( i think around 4 years ago to be exact)and they wernt THAT loud, and also the news ran a special on how they were dilicacies(SP?) to eat. Well they tasted like [censored].

[MicroBob]

Guys - I think some of the reports of having seen them might have been 5-year or 7-year cicadas or something.

Not all cicadas are the 17-year ones, right?

Homer - We had them all over Ohio in 1989.

[emon87]

[ QUOTE ]
Curious if anyone has a link to a list of years in which these have appeared (by region). I seem to recall seeing them when I was 7 or 8 and want to see how good my memory is.

Edit -- Found a link for PA. They did indeed appear when I was 8. (http://www.ento.psu.edu/extension/fa...cal_cicada.htm if anyone else from PA is interested, still can't find one for the whole country).

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In the wikipedia article I linked it lists all the emergences in different regions.

[kipin]

I remember walking around on campus a few years back and being dive-bombed by tons of [censored] cicadas.

That was the worst part, having these large hovering insects just fly into you because they are so clumsy.

Enjoy!

[pergesu]

So how does this work, the eggs hatch and the insects live underground for 17 years before digging a tunnel and emerging from the surface of the earth?

[kyleb]

[quoteHomer - We had them all over Ohio in 1989.

[/ QUOTE ]

god that is [censored] just thinking about it

I HATE BUGS

[TimTimSalabim]

We had lots of them when I was growing up in Kansas. Going outside on a summer night you would hear the loud, rhythmic "wee-oh" chorus, I always thought it was kind of cool. Another fun thing was finding their shed exoskeletons still clinging onto trees.

[selfbonelove]

[ QUOTE ]
It has been hypothesized that the emergence period of large prime numbers (13 and 17 years) is also a predatory avoidance strategy adopted to eliminate the possibility of potential predators receiving periodic population boosts by synchronizing their own generations to divisors of the cicada emergence period.

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From the wikipedia article. Intense.

[GovmentCheese]

I grew up in N. Illinois... and I remember these things.

Holy [censored] were they everywhere. I was a kid and had to deliver newspapers - it was like inclement weather - all the time. You didn't want to be outside because these things were everywhere - flying at you. They didn't bite, and were basically big, clumsy bugs.... but there were just so many of them. Maybe where I was there was just so many of them, but I couldn't imagine there being more of them. If you saw me delivering newspapers, I just walked around with one arm covering my face (they like to fly into my face).. and my other hand with a newspaper swatting furiously.. pretty much constantly. Everywhere you walked, you crunched on their discarded shells... and they completely covered tree trunks.

Not fun. I think I'm going to be in N. Ill a lot this summer - and now that I'm reminded of this... I'm not looking forward to it.

[4_2_it]

Cicadamania

[ QUOTE ]
Cicada Mania started as an online wedding album for friends who were married in an outdoor ceremony in Westfield NJ during the 1996 Brood II emergence. Most of the pictures featured cicadas crawling around the wedding grounds. Eventually I added links to other cicadas sites and basic cicada information. Cicada Mania soon garnered a small but loyal fan base.

The 2004 Brood X emergence was a fantastic time for Cicada Mania: highlights included me appearing on CNN, NPR, and WABC radio, and seeing 50,000 site visitors in one day!

Cicada Mania currently contains over 500 photos of cicadas (many high-res), a blog, plenty of FAQs and articles, a message board and, of course, t-shirts.


[/ QUOTE ]

Wow. I'm not sure what to think about this.