It's that time: Millions of
cicadas emerging from 17-year
cycle to scream, mate, die
Just the News,
by
Daniel Payne
Original Article
Posted By: Ida Lou Pino,
5/24/2020 1:06:25 PM
Residents of the American south are bracing for the emergence of a new brood of 17-year cicadas, the exceedingly noisy insects that fill the summer air with their loud mating calls nearly every two decades. Southerners may soon be treated to "a cacophonous whining like a field of out-of-tune car radios," Virginia Tech announced this week. The bugs live in underground burrows, slowly maturing over their 17-year life cycle, before emerging for about a month to mate, after which they quickly die. The relatively brief adult life of the cicadas is nevertheless notable from the outsized noise levels they generate over the course of about four weeks.
Reply 1 - Posted by:
hershey 5/24/2020 1:11:52 PM (No. 420664)
That ain't all folks...ad the Chinese Killer Wasps, stink bugs, carpenter bees (hate them), ants, roaches and TICKS..(really hate THEM)
3 people like this.
Reply 2 - Posted by:
Quigley 5/24/2020 1:11:56 PM (No. 420665)
I thought that was Dimokkkraps.
5 people like this.
Reply 3 - Posted by:
MindMadeUp 5/24/2020 1:13:45 PM (No. 420671)
They don't "scream". I like the sound they make. Payne must be a city boy.
15 people like this.
Reply 4 - Posted by:
LadyHen 5/24/2020 1:20:01 PM (No. 420685)
Tennessee's next brood is 2021 (our 17 year brood). Then 2024 (19 year brood) and 2025 (14 year brood). And then there are just the normal ones we get every year. It's the sound of summer to me. Cicadas I can live with, though the mass die off stinks to high Heaven.
Mosquitos are the things I dread. And they are in season from April to November every year!
11 people like this.
Reply 5 - Posted by:
earlybird 5/24/2020 1:33:22 PM (No. 420695)
Some fun.
4 people like this.
Reply 6 - Posted by:
Illinois Mom 5/24/2020 1:40:01 PM (No. 420701)
I've lived through several cycles of 17 year cicadas in my time. Besides the fact that they are ugly, their sound is deafening to those of us lucky to live amongst the trees.
Since this year they will emerge in the DC area, will this natural event be spun into a story of Trump causing a "plague of locusts?" After all they haven't had a major calamity to report in at least the last few hours.
10 people like this.
Reply 7 - Posted by:
Safari Man 5/24/2020 1:55:47 PM (No. 420716)
And if the dims get their way, they will each be getting a mail in ballot. Every vote must be counted.
8 people like this.
Reply 8 - Posted by:
HPmatt 5/24/2020 2:09:10 PM (No. 420736)
I like em. Not really as noticeable now - since we got air conditioning in the late 60s. But it does remind me of simpler times, sitting in the front yard after Dad got home from work, after dinner, drinking a beer. Watching the fireflies come out when the sun went down. Cicadas w/b deafening. Of course then at night, with the screens on the windows to keep the mosquitos out, you'd go to sleep with clammy cotton sheets and the bullfrogs would start to croaking....
10 people like this.
Reply 9 - Posted by:
DaddyO 5/24/2020 2:28:41 PM (No. 420752)
17 years ago our dogs gorged themselves on those flying snacks. They ate very well that summer.
8 people like this.
Reply 10 - Posted by:
Omen55 5/24/2020 2:28:45 PM (No. 420753)
Sounds like the kind of life no one would want.
2 people like this.
Reply 11 - Posted by:
DVC 5/24/2020 2:44:23 PM (No. 420767)
I enjoy the cicadas.
8 people like this.
Reply 12 - Posted by:
JHHolliday 5/24/2020 2:47:47 PM (No. 420775)
Living all my life in the South I really don’t mind them. One of the broods, 17 or 19 are really loud though. They all remind me of childhood for some reason.
10 people like this.
Reply 13 - Posted by:
chance_232 5/24/2020 2:52:47 PM (No. 420782)
Is there nothing that climate change cant do?
Oh wait, this isnt being blamed on Trump or climate change? ( give it time )
8 people like this.
Reply 14 - Posted by:
Rather Read 5/24/2020 3:57:23 PM (No. 420829)
I remember the last cicada hatching. The birds, possums and other critters got fat and happy from eating so many. I remember having to fill up the gas tank and cicadas were landing on me while I was pumping the gas. I'm not scared of them (they don't bite or sting) but one of my sisters had a hard time. She is scared of insects.
5 people like this.
Reply 15 - Posted by:
czechlist 5/24/2020 6:19:09 PM (No. 420926)
Texas, 1966, August I think. Crickets! Everywhere especially under street lights. Could hardly walk without stepping on 'em. The noise, the stench!!
Summer would not be summer without the cicadas. If you can catch one use a needle and thread to make it fly in circles!
1 person likes this.
Reply 16 - Posted by:
udanja99 5/24/2020 7:48:51 PM (No. 420980)
I well remember the 2003 cicada hatching in rural Virginia. The noise was deafening and you couldn’t walk anywhere without stepping on them. I like them and always have - their sound is the sound of my childhood on summer nights.
In France, having a cicada in your house is considered good luck just as crickets are in Asia. I picked up a cicada shell during the 2003 hatching and have kept it in a cricket cage in my house ever since. I think they’re cute.
1 person likes this.
Reply 17 - Posted by:
worried 5/24/2020 8:17:40 PM (No. 421002)
Remember hearing them as a kid. The sound to me was more as a loud buzzing. Never could call it a scream, though. But, to each his own.
1 person likes this.
Reply 18 - Posted by:
red1066 5/24/2020 8:49:21 PM (No. 421026)
I remember the last time they came out. I visited a park, and the noise was so loud, one had to almost scream to be heard by someone standing just a couple of feet away.
1 person likes this.
Reply 19 - Posted by:
chumley 5/24/2020 9:19:55 PM (No. 421047)
We got them a few years ago. For about two weeks it sounded like the War Of The Worlds spaceships.
2 people like this.
Reply 20 - Posted by:
lazlototh 5/24/2020 9:47:30 PM (No. 421058)
Cicadas are beautiful insects and I love their sound. It means summer, and the louder the better. The sound is joyous.
3 people like this.
Add them to the sound of migrating frogs. Strange to see them digging holes in the ground and covering the hole with a leaf.
1 person likes this.
Reply 22 - Posted by:
NotaBene 5/25/2020 12:37:21 AM (No. 421125)
Cicadas will eat all the Covids away and Americans will rejoice.
0 people like this.
Reply 23 - Posted by:
Trigger2 5/25/2020 4:36:05 AM (No. 421164)
If you hate bugs, don't come to NY State where Saint Cuomo loves them and issues laws against pesticides that kill them. He prefers bugs live, especially the ones which are carriers of disease to infect you so YOU die, not the bugs.
0 people like this.
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Comments:
In the late 1960s on the Johnny Carson show - - Criswell predicted "ticks in Tennessee." So - - it remains to be seen - - which will come first - - ticks in Tennessee - - or cicadas in West Virginia.