There it was........

[Son-of-a-Weizen]

Soon they'll be massing for an offensive!

[BruceH]

The dreaded cicada? Damn, the last 17 years sure went by fast, huh? Ouch!

[catesta]

[Man with the Golden Arm]

Where's Shurdlu to let us know what this means?

[Joe G]

[rockefeller center]

Where's Shurdlu to let us know what this means?

Thanks for spilling my keyboard with beer.

[couw]

btw: good idea, beer!

[Aggie87]

...just wait until the frogs start falling from the sky, then we're REALLY in trouble!!

[Jazzmoose]

Where's Shurdlu to let us know what this means?

Thanks for spilling my keyboard with beer.

Coffee tends to spill as well...

[chris olivarez]

Soon they'll be massing for an offensive!

Oh lucky you.

[Jim Alfredson]

I've always liked cicadas and used to collect their skins when I was a kid. Nothing makes play time fun like having an army of cicada skins attack your GI Joe's.

But when I was in West Virginia last year, I saw more cicadas than I had ever seen in my life. The ground was literally crawling with them. It was very creepy. It never gets that bad in Michigan.

[Dave James]

When I was a kid, my brother and I spent about six summers toggling between Evanston and Western Springs, Illinois while our Mom got her Masters at Northwestern. One of thsoe Summers corresponded with the arrival of the 17 locusts. I will never forget that as long as I live. Guess I'm glad I live in Ogygone.

Up over and out.

[Son-of-a-Weizen]

..

[Son-of-a-Weizen]

..crunch..crunch...

Edited May 14, 2004 by Son-of-a-Weizen

[Son-of-a-Weizen]

..

[Son-of-a-Weizen]

Here ya go little buddy....17 years without a Weizen is no way to live!! B)

[Son-of-a-Weizen]

..

[couw]

I see the son of weizen has got the trick of making his pics smaller

damn shame you can't have a sip of that spankin new Bernstein-Weizen they produce in the home town here now. Oh boy, yumyumyum...

[Hardbopjazz]

I worked with a guy that would collect the dead cicadas. He would spray them with something to make them harder and then make tie pins out of them. He would glue the clip on the cicada's underneath. Everyday he would have one perched on his tie at work.

[catesta]

Here ya go little buddy....17 years without a Weizen is no way to live!! B)

[BERIGAN]

..crunch..crunch...

Are they that tasty?

[BERIGAN]

Cicadas return to raise racket for summer

By CHARLES SEABROOK

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Published on: 05/12/04

They've been underground for 17 years, and they're ready to come out and make some noise.

They are the "Brood X" cicadas, billions of root-sucking insects that are emerging from the earth in 15 states, from New York to Illinois to Georgia.

James Appleby/Uof Illinois

(ENLARGE)

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Soon, hordes of male cicadas will be emitting their droning mating call, drowning out the loudest lawn mower.

In Georgia, the din will be confined mostly to the northernmost counties, said University of Georgia entomologist Nancy Hinkle. "I don't expect Brood X to be present south of Lumpkin County," she noted.

But the noisy insects with prominent red eyes are expected to be abundant. Though generally harmless, their sheer numbers have been known to disrupt outdoor weddings and festivals.

Anticipating the cicadas' arrival, Cincinnati State Technical and Community College in Ohio decided in March to move its traditional June outdoor graduation inside.

On the other hand, many people are looking forward to Brood X.

To keep track of cicada goings-on, New Jersey resident Dan Century has set up the Cicada Mania Web site at www.cicadamania.com.

In the nation's capital, expected to be the epicenter of the emergence, vendors are selling cicada T-shirts and offering CDs of cicada songs.

The "X" in Brood X stands for the Roman numeral 10, under a system for naming 17-year and 13-year cicada broods. Brood X is the largest hatch of so-called "periodical" cicadas in the United States.

Periodical cicadas are not to be confused with dog-day cicadas, which appear every summer. Seventeen-year cicadas are generally found farther north, while 13-year cicadas are found mainly in the South.

The insects are harmless to humans, Hinkle said.

They're not poisonous and are not known to transmit disease. And despite their large numbers, they cause minimal plant damage.

Once they mate, the males die and the females lay eggs in the bark of twigs. The eggs hatch in about six weeks and the ant-size nymphs fall to the ground, burrowing into the soil to spend the next 13 to 17 years, depending on their life cycle.

"It's amazing how they know to simultaneously surface," Hinkle said.

While underground, the nymphs suck on young tree roots. When they emerge, they crawl up tree trunks to molt into winged adults, leaving a brownish shell on the trees.

During their six weeks of life, the adults search for mates. The males attract females by buzzing — vibrating two shell-like drums along the sides of the abdomen.

[ghost of miles]

Gawd, they're noisy buggers! The sound on parts of the IU campus is truly deafening.

In other news, a Bloomingtonian made NPR's humorous morning spot for being hospitalized after eating 30 fried cicadas...

[ghost of miles]

Cicada Chorus to Hit Full Pitch in June

Sat May 29, 3:06 PM ET  Add Science - AP to My Yahoo!

By THOMAS S. WATSON, Associated Press Writer

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Most of the singers in the chorus are poised and ready to burst forth with song; some are already practicing to get their pitch perfect.

If the mating song of the male cicada seems loud now, though, just wait. The shrill, unified call will hit full pitch in early June, when the cicadas live up to their reputation as one of the world's loudest insects, according to entomologist Lee Townsend.

Billions of the red-eyed insects are crawling their way above ground for their rare mating opportunity. This year's batch, known as Brood X, emerges every 17 years and is the largest of the cicada groups.

The insects' range stretches from Georgia, west through Tennessee and to isolated pockets of Missouri, north along the Ohio Valley and into Michigan, and east into New Jersey and New York.

At General Butler State Resort in Carrollton, desk clerk Tammy Layne said visitors have been asking about the humming noise. "Several people said they thought they were having car trouble," she said.

Males produce their sounds with "tymbals," which are specialized abdominal structures. The calls primarily are used to attract females, but the insects also produce an alarm noise if caught by a predator.

The cicadas that are singing now emerged earlier this spring to look for a mate after living underground on sap from tree roots for 17 years.

Cicadas are distinctive insects that tend to stay in the tops of trees, which is why they are heard more than seen, said Townsend, who works with the University of Kentucky College of Agriculture.

Townsend said he can understand why people would be interested when they see — or hear — the hordes of insects.

"You tend to associate that with the desert locusts of the Middle East and the more tropical areas, and so it's curious when we get a huge explosion of insects like that," he said.

The life cycle of the cicada is long but relatively simple. Adults usually emerge between late April and early June.

After mating, females lay eggs in trees. Eggs hatch in six to eight weeks. Nymphs fall to the ground and burrow down to the root system for their long wait until the next emergence.

[7/4]

And I haven't even heard or seen one yet.