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Sandy's Corner

A Word From a Cicada

As told to Sandy Dickson

     Hello there. I’m a cicada with a big family reunion planned in your area in early summer so I thought it might be nice if we could meet and come to an understanding. There are 100 species of us found in North America and the majority of us have a life cycle of between two and eight years. Some of us make the scene every year and help produce ‘the sounds of summer.’ We like to call it summer music and neither birds nor lawn mowers provide any competition for us, as our males are the loudest insects in the world. The females don’t make any noise at all. (Is that typical of you humans also?) During the males’ courtship (which is the purpose of our song,) our call can reach 90 decibels--about that of a kitchen blender. What can amount to 1.5 million of us per acre can make some concentrated serious noise! Different species produce different calls at different times of the day so as to attract only females of each’s own species. But since birds find us a rather tasty treat, the noisy call of some of our species also scares them off.  We really have no other defense. The pair of special ribbed membranes at the base of our abdomens called tymbals makes that noise possible. All we have to do is contract those tymbal muscles (like cymbals) for that pulsating sound and because our male abdomens are mostly hollow, it amplifies the sound. Sometimes we males group together to deliberately form an orchestra to increase the noise volume and decrease our chance of being some bird’s dinner.

     Only nine of the annual species are in the Midwest. Other species are called periodical species and we have cycled our lives to emerge from the ground once every 13 to 17 years. Those periodical cicadas are often referred to as 17-year locusts, but as you can see, this is erroneous. The adults are about one and a half inches along with black bodies and most have red eyes, which some humans find very scary. The orange wings only add to their inhibiting appearance. About one percent have white, pale blue, orange or brown eyes. But don’t worry. I’d say it’s safe to assume we are more afraid of you than you are of us. Imagine from our point of view, gliding helplessly through the air and seeing big giants such as humans coming right toward you. You don’t have the ability to move from side to side to avoid the giant, even while you know you are going to smack right into them. We have no defense, we can’t even bite or attack in any way. We see the collision as inevitable and can’t even do anything about it. Vehicles are an even bigger horror. Giants consider a cicada smashed all over their cars a big inconvenience, but imagine the inconvenience to us to be splatted all over a windshield! Ouch. Life is short!

     So here’s what periodic cicadas do. We go through three life cycle stages: egg, nymph and adult. Each female lays several hundred eggs, 10 to 12 eggs per slit of tree branch bark. I have to confess, sometimes it causes the twigs to break, but that causes no permanent harm to the trees. Those eggs hatch into nymph stage in about six weeks.

     The nymphs fall to the ground and burrow into the dirt by digging into the ground with their forelegs. There we feed on tree sap root and continue to grow. Periodically, we shed our exoskeleton  and this goes on for 13 to 17 years, depending on our species.

     When the soil in our year of emergence reaches 65 degrees—usually in May or June, though we are still considered nymphs, we dig our way to the surface at night. We shed our exoskeleton one last time, which exposes our new wings, and then we are considered having reached our adult maturity. We usually find a tree and sit around on the trunk awhile because we are still white and soft for the first few hours, but when we are exposed to the air for a bit, we firm up. Then with wings unfurled, we get down to serious business and get on with finding our females to continue our life cycle. We ‘periodicals’ only live from two to six weeks, (unless we meet up with a car) so we have to work fast. We may or may not eat during that time, but if we do, we suck sap from twigs, though this doesn’t harm the tree.

     If you don’t feel you are experiencing the full onslaught of us, you probably live in a subdivision  where the earth has been turned, packed in and built over with lots of pavement around. Go to the woods or forest preserves or even an older neighborhood with long established trees. You may very well pick up a leaf and find one of my own in nymphhood. Take a look at it and marvel. Listen to the music of my relatives and appreciate it. Certainly don’t dread us. We won’t hurt you and you won’t get the chance but every 13 to 17 years, so consider us a rare, mysterious and fascinating pleasure!

Copyright © 2007 Sandy Dickson. All rights reserved.