While turning my compost this morning, I turned up a sicadia(sp) locas, or the 17 Yr. locas, anyway, from egg, it takes 17 years to complete the cycle, or so I've heard.I covered it back up, after looking it over, all legs, and a hard shell.This after noon I went out to add to the pile, and this is what I saw.....
Wow awesome picture. Thanks for sharing.
Patti
good photo, it would seem almost irreverant to see it killed. 17 years is an awful long time to wait to see the sun. I see the skeletons around my yard all the time. And I hear them buzzing in the trees from sun-up to sun down. Maybe its a southern thing, but like fried okra, they are a southern staple that would diminish us if they were not around.
good photo Mike, I wish I had stayed at your house a little longer now .That has to be something you wouldn't see every other day. I hope you got other good pics to go with that one.
Thank you, but I wish I were a better photographer, and speller too, I think its cicada, the corect sp.I wish I had stayed out there with the camera, because it took all of 2Hrs., for him to go through the complete metamorphisis.His head, when first emerging, was narrow, like 1/8", and just before he flew away his head had widened by 1/2".His color got darker during the 2Hrs., that he spent, about 6" from the exoskelaton.It was awsome to me seeing this for the first time.Mike
I wish I knew how to make a grouping.Mike
Pretty cool Mike! Thanks for the photos.
These are really cool insects. Hearing their buzzing in the trees is a signal that our monsoon season is about to start here in the the southwest.
You gotta be kidding me!!! I'd gladly smash him.
When they last emerged here in 2004, there were literally billions of them. They're everywhere, and you can have MANY on you after a few minutes outdoors. They cover everything. You can't walk on the sidewalk without crushing them underfoot. The noise can be deafening. They eat the bark from the undersides of tree limbs, and small branches are lost . They kill young trees. Dogs eat them and get sick. And as they die off and rot on the ground, the stench is absolutely nauseating.
I hope I move to someplace cicada-free before their next emergence in 2021.
Try this link for anything you ever wanted to know about cicadas.
http://www.cincinnati.com/freetime/cicadas/
Karen
Karen, I had never heard of the "infestation" before, but did go visit a friend in Pa., and the devistation was unbelievable.No, down here we are lulled by the sound of a few rustleing in the trees, and it adds to the "old south" sounds.Mike
Funny, I grew up in Pittsburgh and we didn't have them there. I had never heard of a cicada. But everyone in the Cincinnati area is familiar with them, that's for sure. There are literally billions around at the same time. Did you see that link I posted? It will give some idea of how crazed people get. Many try never to leave their houses while the cicadas are here. For some reason which I forget, they lasted much longer than the predicted 6 weeks the last time. Seems it was much of the summer. And then that stench!
Karen
Sounds like Alfread Hitchcock missed a great idea for a movie.I can't remember the year, but my friend is from beaver co. Pa., and there was damaged trees, like I have never seen, and believe me, I can reconize tree dammage from a distance, and I ask what stripped the trees, and he replyed cicadas, I sad no way, then told me about the invasion.
I would imagine in 2021, there might be more, because of multipuls, I can only imagine.There is a wasp, that burrows under ground, that feeds on the cicada, it will kill it, and fly it into its hole, I guess they would go wild up there.
Some of the old timmers, try to log the song of the cicada, and predict the first frost.I knew an old fellow who would never miss.Funny how different areas view things so different.
Enjoyed the web page, and can understand your feelings.I would catch a fast polar bear north in 2021, if I lived there. Mike
Wow! Red eyed cicadas! Are you kidding me???? Our cicadas are kind of yellow/golden eyed, as are the parts of their legs that are red on your cicada. We must have a different species down here. Would also explain why we have them every year as compared to every 17 years. One got in the house last evening and roosted on top of the kitchen cabinets --- much to my cats' delight!!!! I crawled up there and got him to let go outside as I didn't want cicada body parts all over the house (little leg here, little leg there, oh my here's a wing).
Crista, maybe you do have a different species, becaust these take 17 yrs from egg to adult, and the adult only lives 4Mos.All through the east we have the same cicada, and they sound like a cricket in a bucket, with a microphone.LOUD.
There are annual Cicadas that come every year. Not the same brood as the 17 year ones.
Gita
I don't know what we had last year but the sound was deafening. You couldn't even visit with someone outside without yelling at them. If one got in the house when you opened the door the dogs made short work of it. They love them, never made them sick. They liked to chomp on them until they quit buzzing.
I noticed the other night that we only have a few now, not the hundreds we had last year. It's so much nicer outside now.
You're right, I think our species in Arizona is a completely different bug than what you have. The shells from their pupae are all over the place and like in Mount Vernon, the sound when they start up can be deafening. I don't know that the cicadas here have ever been in numbers to cause the plant damage you described. We have more of a problem with palo verde beetles causing tree damage. Unlike the cicada, the palo verde beetles eat into trees and you can start playing taps. On the other hand, they are no threat to humans -- just very intimidating to come across when you're not expecting one!!!
