Can You Hear Them Too?

This summer my children have been fascinated with the sounds and the bugs outside.  At first, it was just the rain, lightening, thunder, lighting bugs or butterflies.  This evening the girls were much more interested in the loud sound coming from the outdoors.  Being such a bug expert, I proceeded to explain what they were hearing was the call of the 17 year old cicadas. I went on to explain how they come here every 17 years and leave their shells on our trees and bushes.  Ella being the child that likes bugs wanted to know the "real story" asked to do a google search to learn more about these "really old bugs".

 

To my surprise, I was wrong.   We are not hearing 17 year old cicadas.  Most of  17 year old Brood II periodical cicadas hit their peak weeks ago and died-off in June. Those cicadas have a life cycle that started with 17 years of crawling underground and sucking on plant roots, which was followed by weeks of fling of flying, singing and mating. The massive emergence of these insects were suppose to make a massive impression on bug-watchers from the Carolinas to upstate New York.  But this year the outbreak was spotty at best.  According to our research,  Cicada outbreaks are notoriously spotty: A chorus of the insects may have buzzed noisily in one area of the woods while a different area was cicada-free.

 

So  the question remained at this point "what is making the noises are we hearing?"  The sounds we are hearing now are coming from a bug called the "dog-day" cicadas.  "These bugs hatch out every summer in July because it is their time of year." according to , said John Cooley, an entomologist at the University of Connecticut.  The annual "dog day" cicadas don't have the red eyes and 90-decibel buzz or follow the 17 year life cycle that characterized Brood II cicadas.

Apparently, there were some unexpected twists with the cicadas this year.  The 17 year old periodical cicadas were sighted in Oklahoma and are on the same schedule as the East Coast's Brood II.    Bug-watchers also came across new "holes" where they expected to see cicadas but found none. "Low densities could mean they're going extinct, or it could mean that they're invading an area where they haven't been before," Cooley said. "To figure out what that means, you need more than one generation's worth of data."   Tiny Brood II Cicada nymphs are now starting to hatch from the eggs that were laid during this spring's mating orgy. Those baby bugs will drop down to the ground, dig in and wait for their biological clocks to tick down to the next outbreak in 2030. As one generation passes away, the next one takes root. So in that sense, there's never any "last cicada."
According to our research the Bug-watchers are already making plans to go witness next spring's Brood III outbreak. This is when billions of cicadas will rise up from areas of Iowa, Illinois and Missouri. "You get some freaking howling choruses out there," Cooley said.  I promised the girls we wouldn't go on a field trip to see them.