The Song of the Cicada

Sounds of summer........Whirrrrrrrrrrrrrllllll. Yes this is one of the years of the legendary 17 year locust or more precisely the periodic cicada. I'm sure some of you are enjoying the song of this noisy little critter at the moment or have done so just recently, for this is the time of year that the cicada emerges from a long subterranean existence to bask in the warm early summer sunshine. Actually the little muscians will be spending about 2 to 4 weeks procreating and egg laying before becoming nothing more than an amazing memory.

The periodical cicadas, Magicicada spp. are sucking insects that appear in hordes in May and June and thus were mistaken by early colonists as "locusts" Of course everyone knows the term locust applies to grasshoppers and their use to describe cicadas is inaccurate. Periodical cicadas emerge in any specific location on a 13 or 17 year cycle, which is the length of their life cycle.

The 17 year variety has seventeen broods, one for each year that are identified by roman numerals I through XVII. The brood numbering system began in 1893 with Brood I. Brood II emerged in 1894 and numbering proceeded through Brood XVII in 1899. The year 1900 saw the return of Brood I. This year, 1999 we are enjoying Brood V. There is not a brood in every location every year. This year's brood is expected to emerge in eastern Ohio, central West Virginia and parts of Virginia, and Pennsylvania.

The 13 year variety is a more southern species that ranges from the southern Virginia counties south. It's broods are numbered from XVIII through XXX. Where their ranges overlap they can occur in the same year. Likewise a local area can have more than one brood active so that one or the other is emerging in several years.

So, what is the potential impact of this clear-winged, orange-eyed horde. Actually you will be relieved to know that other than some tattered nerves on the part of the squeamish, the net impact of the cicadas probably will be nothing more than a natural pruning of trees within areas affected by this year's brood.

The male cicadas will issue their whirrrring mating call and the females will lay their eggs by using their saw tooth ovipositor to cut slits in the bark of ¼ to ½ inch twigs. In each slit she will lay 1 to 40 eggs and will

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