B.Cross X is at the door. Across the United States, billions, if not trillions of cicadas have appeared underground, a biblical plague that occurs every 17 years. Gene Kritsky wouldn’t miss it. “This is something special,” he says. Kritsky is an entomologist at Mount St. Joseph University in Cincinnati and has studied periodic cicadas for nearly 40 years. Brood X, the subject of three of his books, has a special place in his heart. Amid back-to-back interviews during his busiest career since 2004 (“It happens every 17 years”), he found time to share his favorite facts with us.
1 Not all cicadas are created equal
Of the 3,400 species of cicada, only seven are periodic and spend 13 or 17 years underground before emerging en masse to mate and die. The long life cycles are believed to have evolved over the past 300,000 years as an adaptation to the Ice Age, with the cicadas appearing earlier south of the retreating ice sheet. Since 2000, two more periodic species with a life cycle of eight and four years have been discovered in Fiji and India.
2 Not everyone is a fan
Kritsky says some people go on “cicadas” (vacations) to avoid the crush. In 20 years he has helped 83 couples find a date for their weddings. “Though I think a wedding with cicadas is a lot more romantic,” he says. “Their mating call is a song of love!”
3 You are loud
Only the male cicadas are singing, gathered in large numbers in trees. They produce their calls using organs on either side of the body called the pelvis, and amplify the sound through their hollow belly. “They scream for about 96 decibels. It’s louder than the jets that fly to Heathrow, ”says Kritsky. In fact, prolonged exposure can lead to permanent hearing loss. If you can’t postpone your wedding, consider bringing large speakers or bagpipes.
4 watch out for ‘cicada rain’
Like aphids, bed bugs, and all of the “true beetles” in the Hemiptera insect order, cicadas cannot eat solids (or bite humans). “They have no hard mouth parts,” says Kritsky. Instead, they live on a completely liquid diet with xylem fluid from tree tissue and roots and release excess fluid through peeing. The unexpected splash from above is known as “rain of cicadas” or “honeydew”. It’s not harmful, but some people wear a wide-brimmed hat to avoid it.
5 Your circadian rhythms are mysterious
It is believed that cicadas have an internal clock that is calibrated by environmental influences – for example, changes in the flow of fluid in the tree roots. “This is how they mark the passage of time,” says Kritsky. “What we don’t know is how they remember the year it is.” In Cincinnati in 2007, unusually warm temperatures followed by a frost resulted in hundreds of cicadas showing up a year earlier.
6 They’ll come out in the spring
In the years when breeding is due, the cicadas begin to emerge when the spring soil temperature reaches 18 ° C. That is influenced by the warming temperatures, says Kritsky. Before 1950, Brood X would arrive in Cincinnati on May 28 or 29. now it arrives on May 17th on average. It is believed that creation began last week in the United States.
7th The X in brood X means 10
In 1898, the breeds were assigned a Roman numeral based on their location and the calendar year in which they appear. Numbers 1-17 denote 17-year-old cicadas, while 18-30 follow a 13-year cycle.
8 … and it is historically significant
Brood X is the largest brood of 17-year-old cicadas and extends across 15 US states from Indiana to New York. Because of its prevalence in cities, it has been written about for centuries. On May 9, 1715, a pastor in Pennsylvania’s oldest church wrote in his diary that “some unique flies came out of the ground”; This was the first historical record of Brood X. Every surfacing since then has been documented – this is the 19th. “They are mistakes in history,” says Kritsky.
9 billion is not an exaggeration
Kritsky estimates the “volume” of Brood X at around 1.3 million bugs per acre. In 2004 the maximum density was 356 per square meter. The numbers are believed to be a survival strategy to overwhelm predators so that no matter how many cicadas are eaten, there are still millions left to reproduce.
10 You are big
Few animals, other than locusts, bees, and some fish, accumulate to such an extent. “What’s different is that these guys are tall,” says Kritsky. The largest are about 2 inches long, with orange-veined wings and bright red eyes. “These guys are in your face … they’re clumsy.”
11 You inspired Bob Dylan
In 1970 Dylan received an honorary doctorate from Princeton University, New Jersey, in the middle of Brood X. He wrote Day of the Locusts of hearing their “high wailing” from the stage: “The locusts sang and they sang for me.”
12 They are easy to confuse
Female cicadas cannot sing but show interest in males by flicking their wings to make a low noise. In 2004, David Attenborough emulated it by snapping his fingers – much to a man’s frustration. Others have described cicadas being attracted to power tools and lawnmowers.
13 They taste like canned asparagus
So tell those who tried including Kritsky. “Because they’re sucking liquid from a root, they’re going to have a very green taste,” he says. He ate them out of curiosity at first but stopped after meeting Brood X for the first time in 1987. “I really like these insects. You got me a term. “
14 A sexually transmitted disease drives them sex crazy – but their genitals fall off
“I’ll just make that clear to you,” says Kritsky grimly. The dormant fungus Massospora cicadina reappears next to periodic cicadas and only infects men. It causes the beetle’s abdomen and genitals to fall off, leaving a mass of fungus. It also makes him “extremely sex-driven,” says Kritsky – not to mate (he was spayed), but to spread the fungus. The infected male not only sings, but also clicks its wings like a female to attract more partners. Less than 5% of leafhoppers are reportedly infected, but it’s not uncommon for people to eat them for amphetamines in the mushroom (a very bad idea, according to scientists).
15 You do a lot of good
Male cicadas die after mating; The female lays 500 eggs in branches and then dies too. The ant-like nymphs hatch six to ten weeks later, fall to the ground, and burrow underground as quickly as possible to avoid predators. They will settle about eight to twelve inches below the surface and feed on a tree root. “And that’s where they’ll be for the next 17 years,” says Kritsky.
Each phase of the cicada’s life cycle has benefits for regional ecology: they turn the soil around, prune trees naturally, encourage predator populations, and return nutrients to the soil through their rotting bodies.
16 Brood X is in danger
Despite his billions, Brood X is in decline. The destruction and fragmentation of their forest houses since the 1890s means that one day the number of cicadas that appear may no longer keep up with their predators. Brood XI has been considered extinct since 1954, and Brood X could go the same route, says Kritsky. More than half of the counties in northwest Ohio that admitted Brood X a century ago are silent this year.
Kritsky hopes to map them this year through a new app, Cicada Safari, which gathers reports from the public. In one month it received 250,000 pictures of cicadas. With a team of 20 colleagues, Kritsky wants to go through each one.
17 Your consistency is comforting
This is Kritsky’s third meeting with Brood X. The next time he reunites, he will be 84 years old. “I see the grandchildren from what I saw in 1987. I go to the same trees as 34 years ago. “
The periodic reappearance of cicadas provides an opportunity to reflect on the passage of time. For Kritsky, that’s something comforting. “We don’t know when the pandemic will end,” he says, “but the cicadas came out in May.”
