They're a-coming!
On or about May 2004, Brood X of the 17-year
periodical cicadas will emerge. If you are in
this area, you will soon be swarmed.
I was a wee lad the last time this happened, and I remember the shells covering the trees and telephone poles, and the incredible sound. But most of all, I remember trying to walk to school without squishing them all.
Originally posted by Happy Monkey
On or about May 2004, Brood X of the 17-year periodical cicadas will emerge. If you are in this area, you will soon be swarmed.
I was a wee lad the last time this happened, and I remember the shells covering the trees and telephone poles, and the incredible sound. But most of all, I remember trying to walk to school without squishing them all.
Dear god: I was just graduating HS when this...event happened, and graduation day was certainly interesting. *cringe* I recall when one of those damn things was on the inside of my shirt. What happened was that some friends and I were bowling one night. After we finished up, we walked across the street to a 7-11 to wait for a ride home. I was leaning up against a trash can, and was wearing a long shirt. I suddenly felt a movement under my shirt, I looked inside, and I saw that...that thing! I screamed bloody murder, and shook my shirt away from my body to shake the cicada off (and thank GOD it was crawling up the shirt side and not actually on my skin, or else I would have died! lol).
I'm on the UMMZ site...I thought that these cicadas were blind, but I don't see anything written about that.
Not looking forward to seeing them again, especially not living here in PA, where I hear it's really bad. :(
*feeling her bugphobia going up many notches...*
I don't think they're blind, they're just not particularly agile, so they bump into stuff alot. Unlike most flying insects, they only fly for a few weeks every 17 years, and they do so in such numbers that predators don't make a dent. So agility wasn't a particularly important survival trait.
Ewwww... Ewwwww... I hate bugs....:worried:
I bet that would be a fun time to test out a flamethrower.
Alas, my olfactory memory doesn't seem to reach back 17 years. I don't remember the odor.
I voted for "tasty". I don't know what they taste like, but they must be pretty yummy because my cats bring about a dozen per year into the house.
At work we have been known to take various insect carcasses (including cicaidas), tie black threads to them, and wave them at certain bug-senstive female crisis workers in an attempt to torture them.
If we are going to end up with a lot of them, I may have to discuss having one of the tall guys climb up and tape the threads to the ceiling fan, so they can whirl around.
It will be just like they were actually alive and swarming again.
Yes, I will take pictures if I make this happen.
St. Louis had two or three varieties up and at 'em a couple of years ago. There were so many that there were piles of them under trees. You had to shovel them up an pitch them. Let me tell you they made an awful stink when they died.
Philadelphia is in that area, but nobody, I mean NOBODY, not even the periodical cicaidas can take then territory away from a good old fashioned, pollution fed, garbage nurtured cockroach!
I think we'll see very few of them in the city!
I suspect it depends on how much exposed soil there is in the area. DC has tons. I don't know about Philly.
Just checked your link... I really could have lived without the recipies...
:vomit:
:vomit:
:vomit:
BLECHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!
I don't personally fed the little bastards! Yet that is how they get so big I think....My personal staisfaction is from wasting the little bastards, if I'm fast enough that is....Later! :shotgun: :rattat:
Mmm.. Cicadas and Diet Rite cola!
were's the RC cola!!!
WOW talk about a down home, old school pic!!! :yum:
Well, I voted for tasty, but I would have preferred "crunchy." Nothing like a nice crunchy walk on a cicada-riddled trail!
Originally posted by wolf
At work we have been known to take various insect carcasses (including cicaidas), tie black threads to them, and wave them at certain bug-senstive female crisis workers in an attempt to torture them.
If we are going to end up with a lot of them, I may have to discuss having one of the tall guys climb up and tape the threads to the ceiling fan, so they can whirl around.
It will be just like they were actually alive and swarming again.
Yes, I will take pictures if I make this happen.
Let me get this straight, you
work in a mental hospital. Are you trying out for the Nurse Ratched award?:eek:
Yes, I have keys and shoelaces.
My coworkers already fear me, despite my having assured several of them, "well, you're on the list, but you're after 'reload.'"
By doing things like this I keep them amused and off guard. I may need that one of these days.
Their holes have appeared. Won't be long now.
At work we have been known to take various insect carcasses (including cicaidas), tie black threads to them, and wave them at certain bug-senstive female crisis workers in an attempt to torture them.
If we are going to end up with a lot of them, I may have to discuss having one of the tall guys climb up and tape the threads to the ceiling fan, so they can whirl around.
It will be just like they were actually alive and swarming again.
Yes, I will take pictures if I make this happen.
How many ex coworkers do you now how under lock and key?
Strangely enough, relatively few. I've only seen one actual staff member (a college summer intern) admitted to our hospital ... oh wait, and there was someone in administration that we had to quietly send to alcohol rehab about 9 years ago. We tend to be relatively resilient.
Our problems tend to center more around things like the psych tech who was murdered by his crazy girlfriend two years ago yesterday, IIRC. That was right after my best friend's suicide (also a staff member), so we were a bit emotionally numb for a while. 2002 was a particularly bad year ... two deaths from natural causes, one suicide, one murder, and one part time nurse who drank herself to death. We're actually starting another round of this ... staff member died in her sleep last week, just before that the 13 y.o. son of one of our folks hung himself, and a former employee's son died of a herion overdose.
I just saw my first early risers. I saw about 10 of them while walking to my car this morning.
For heaven's sake will somebody tell me what these things are? I just assumed you were talking about crickets or grasshoppers but you make it sound like the return of the bodysnatchers or summat.
And I thought we had problems with daddy-long-legs....
Check out the first link on the first post.
These are the oldest insects in the world (IIRC). They were born 17 years ago, and are about to swarm again.
These guys are about as harmless as daddy-log-legs, but they are huge (2" long, .5" wide), noisy, and there are going to be millions of 'em.
Here's a telephone pole up the street from my parents' house.
And here's a closeup of the base of the pole.
and there are going to be millions of 'em.
Point of order, I think you mean Billions.:)
We've got holes around the tree and the bushes in front of our building.
I wonder if they'll affect Plastic Forks, which is June 26.
Originally posted by xoxoxoBruce
Point of order, I think you mean Billions.:)
I meant in my neighborhood! Yeah... that's the ticket!
Originally posted by sycamore
We've got holes around the tree and the bushes in front of our building.
I wonder if they'll affect Plastic Forks, which is June 26.
That's why we have an indoors, although I'm sure that we can come up with some kind of clever party game involving the damn things.
I hear they are emerging in Delaware and the line is moving north. We were talking about the locusts at work tonight, wondering where the hell they were, already ...
Originally posted by Happy Monkey
And here's a closeup of the base of the pole.
AAAAAAAAAAAHHHH oh god nooooooooooo! :p :eek: :(
*still waiting for the invasion*
Nothing up here in King-o-Prussia, or further up in Trappe. I think the cicadas decided to skip a cycle.
What's the temp up north there?
Here's a nymph, on its way to find a place to molt. It's slightly longer than a quarter in real life.
Originally posted by russotto
Nothing up here in King-o-Prussia, or further up in Trappe. I think the cicadas decided to skip a cycle.
God I can only hope and PRAY, but somehow, (sadly) I doubt it. :(
My mother says it is B.A.D. in Baltimore right now. I don't envy her one bit. She told me that some dude was driving around the neighborhood with a truch offering to spray the shrubs and the trees. She declined, because she wasn't comfortable that he was in a non-company truck (she's 67 and she's not trying to get taken advantage of).
*still bracing...* :worried:
I'm in Virginia. It's not so bad here. I mean, sure, there are tens of thousands of these things all over the yard, but no biggie. They really aren't that bad.
You want bad, talk about mosquitos. Talk about ants in the house. Talk about cockroaches.
Cicadas are really nothing.
Originally posted by glatt
I'm in Virginia. It's not so bad here. I mean, sure, there are tens of thousands of these things all over the yard, but no biggie. They really aren't that bad.
You want bad, talk about mosquitos. Talk about ants in the house. Talk about cockroaches.
Cicadas are really nothing.
Depends on what you see as "bad" (tens of thousands sounds bad...now if it was tens of hundreds, that may not be as bad).
While my mother seemed quite calm about them, my friend was saying that you look up in the trees and it's like there are no leaves, just bugs. So, I suppose it's in the eye of the beholder.
It the volume wasn't so huge, I'd feel a bit better about the whole thing. Ah well...
And yeah, roaches and mosquitos are bad..never had ants though.
I got some great pictures tonight.
Here's a nymph just poking out of it's shell.
Here's a different one, starting to unfold it's wings.
Here's one with the wings extended, letting them dry and harden.
From the link:
What do Cicadas eat?
Human children are the primary source of nutrition for Cicadas.
Are Cicadas poisonous?
Yes, Cicadas have a deadly venom that is injected through a small bone like tube known as the "Cicada deadly venom tube". The venom can kill a human being instantly. In 1987, the last time the Cicadas emerged in Cincinnati, over 7 million people died from Cicada injections. Many people escaped but most perished.
How do Cicadas mate?
The female cicada injects her eggs under the skin of a small human child. The cicada pupae then grow inside the child until they reach maturity. Unless you protect your children they may become host to thousands of deadly Cicada pupae. See how to protect your children.
Bwahahahahahahhahaha.:haha:
But bruce they can infest adults as well !!!!
I still haven't seen one of the damn things, but was driving down from Berks County yesterday and passed through an area that has them. I still didn't see one, but I actually turned off the stereo to listen ... eerie.
How do people sleep through that?
They are basically gone from the DC area. You see a few here or there, but mostly they are latecomers that will never get any action. Poor things.
It's quiet again.
That isn't fucking safe for anything zippyt. I still can't work out what they photoshopped together to make that.
Check snopes. It looks like a lotus flower.
:vomit:
Lotus Seed Pod, actually.
What's funny is that I've seen this somewhat disturbing, but well done, digital enhancement numerous times, but I'd never seen the version with the "weird rash/infestation" story before hitting snopes.
Originally posted by wolf
Lotus Seed Pod, actually.
What's funny is that I've seen this somewhat disturbing, but well done, digital enhancement numerous times, but I'd never seen the version with the "weird rash/infestation" story before hitting snopes.
Jesus. Whatever it is, I wish I hadn't seen it. It did look "fake", but still nasty! Fuck! *jabs herself in her mind's eye...out image out!!!!* :mad:
Anything but the Cicadas
Wednesday, July 14, 2004
Incessant insect buzzing is a fate almost as bad as jail, a Cincinnati man argued to a judge late last month.
Joe Armstrong had been convicted of selling $20 worth of cocaine and was facing sentencing before Hamilton County Common Pleas Court Judge Steve Martin on June 30, reports the Cincinnati Post.
Before Martin decided whether to give Armstrong the maximum year in prison, he asked him if there was anything he wanted to say.
Armstrong asked for probation instead of jail time — because this spring's invasion of Brood X cicadas had been enough punishment.
"What did the cicadas have to do with it?" asked Martin.
"They caused my wife, she was terrified, so she rode me as long as they was here," Armstrong replied. "I suffered so much mental anguish, it's just by the grace of God that I still have my sanity at this point in time."
"I don't think probation will work here," Martin answered, noting that Armstrong had been placed on probation 10 times since 1985, had not completed any of the terms of probation and was in fact wanted in Alabama for a 1996 violation.
Armstrong persisted.
"If I was to do six months, I would likely come home to nothing," he said. "No wife. No phone. Nothing."
Martin gave him six months in the Hamilton County Justice Center anyway — but made him eligible to cut that time to two months with work details.
As for the cicadas, there are none in the Justice Center, said Hamilton County Sheriff's spokesman Steve Barnett.
"As for the cicadas, there are none in the Justice Center, said Hamilton County Sheriff's spokesman Steve Barnett."
And apparently, thank GOD, there were none here in Philly either. *whew!!* :thumpsup: ;) :D
Zombie Thread Alert (plus nasty photoshopped pic)
I just took some photos of cicada damage, 2.5 years later, on some cherry trees.
Did they bore holes in the limb, HM? :eek:
They lay eggs under the bark with a stinger-like ovipositor, cutting short slits. The eggs hatch, and the young 'uns work their way out, fall to the ground, and head for the roots.
Good pictures.
We planted a new tree just before the cicadas came. They tore the hell out of all of its nice tender young limbs. But it is slowly healing. It's kind of amazing to me that they are able to drill through wood to lay their eggs. When you look carefully at the slender branches on all the trees around here, they all have those scars.
I knew they hatched their eggs under the bark, buy didn't know the larva would dig into the wood. I guess the larva only have to screw up the cambium layer, (and bark) to cause that damage. :confused:
The adults drill the hole into the wood and lay the egg. When the egg hatches, the worm just wiggles out the same hole.
But that scar is 2 or 3 inches long, isn't it? More than just a hole in and out. :confused:
I checked...:blush:
Periodical cicadas damage trees above and below ground. The most obvious damage is that caused by egg laying in small twigs. This damage causes twigs to split, wither, and die, causing a symptom called "flagging." Flagging is especially serious on young plants (four years or younger) because more of the branches are of the preferred size for oviposition, 1/4 to 1/2 inch in diameter.
The female's ovipositor slices into the wood and deposits the eggs. One to several dozen eggs can be laid in one branch, with up to 400 eggs being laid by each female in 40 to 50 sites.
Cicada eggs remain in the twigs for six to ten weeks before hatching. The newly hatched, ant-like nymphs fall to the ground where they burrow 6 to 18 inches underground to feed.
Here's a cut away of two egg clutches. Now I see how they do so much damage.
They slice a slit, and lay several eggs in a row. The bigger scars might be the work of two or three cicadas on some especially attractive real estate, or maybe cherry just scars really badly. There are smaller scars all over; I just took pictures of the especially bad ones.
[edit]As you say...
That scar has the appearance of one long gash, but it's really multiple holes in a long line, spaced very closely to one another. When the scar is fresh, it's much easier to see the multiple holes. The larvae that come out are tiny. Like just a single mm or so long.
I saw a couple of them after they hatched and dropped down onto the roof of my car. Only reason I was able to see them is that they left a trail in the morning dew. At the end of a foot long dew trail, there was a little squirming speck of a worm.
edit: damn I type slow.
Well, I wouldn't cross any bitch with an ovipositor that can do that.:eek:
Here's a site with some good pictures of the larvae just before and after hatching.
Yeah, that gang could really raise hell with a tender young twig.....good thing they don't hang around the bus station. :worried:
Well, I wouldn't cross any bitch with an ovipositor that can do that.:eek:
Eeeeauuw.
Alien nightmare flashbacks.
It's not 17 years yet, but a different brood is
coming to the Eastern seaboard.
Do you remember the 1996 brood? Because I don't.
I think it's a lot of media hype, like before a storm.
The 2004 brood was absolutely insane. I remember that one like it was yesterday. And the reason I remember it is because I had never seen anything remotely like it up until then.
Do you remember any cicadas from 1996?
It's not 17 years yet, but a different brood is coming to the Eastern seaboard.
The
command center during the oncoming onslaught on the interwebz according to
Wired magazine.
2004 (
Brood X) is the big one in the DC area. I don't think we'll see too much out of
Brood II around here, but maybe someone on the Cellar will.
I think you're right. But the Washington Post, and Post Express both put it on the front page today. Like it's going to be a big deal here. I don't think so.
It's too bad. I like the cicadas. They are neat.
At work we have been known to take various insect carcasses (including cicaidas), tie black threads to them, and wave them at certain bug-senstive female crisis workers in an attempt to torture them.
And you guys are on the
outside of the locked rooms?
[vimeo]66688653[/vimeo]
kickstarterHave you seen any? A FB friend who lives in Springfield VA is complaining about them, but I haven't even seen one yet.
If they come around here, we have a invasion of fbb's * to gobble them up.
[SIZE="2"][COLOR="Wheat"]*fucking blackbirds - grackles or starlings, I can never tell. But they are loud and have bullied all my beloved sparrows and finches away[/COLOR][/SIZE]
Not sure if this will work, the preview isn't working. The vimeo link is:
http://player.vimeo.com/video/66688653
Cool video on cicadas.
[VIMEO]<iframe src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/66688653?portrait=0&badge=0" width="500" height="281" frameborder="0" webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen></iframe> <p><a href="http://vimeo.com/66688653">Return of the Cicadas</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/motionkicker">motionkicker</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com">Vimeo</a>.</p>[/VIMEO]
The latest map I saw shows that we aren't going to get any cicadas here, but if I take a half hour drive, I'll be deep in cicada country.
Gosh, Glatt, that's beautiful.
I'm sorry we aren't getting any of them here. They are very interesting.
Yes, the photography throughout is remarkable.
I learned several things...
* triliums grow in more places than just Oregon !
... (here I thought PDX was so special )
* the eggs are laid up in the tree branches
* the cacophony lasts for just a couple of weeks
... ( in Iowa years ago I could not imagine living with it for very long )
thanks for the video fellas
Apparently a subset of 17-year cicadas come out 4 years early. Four more years 'til the big one, but even this small subset is making a lot of noise in my neighborhood.
Yeah. It's weird.
Lots of them here too. Is this normal? Or is the weird weather confusing them?
I saw an amazing nature show on PBS last night that had very good footage of the cicada life cycle. I always wondered what those tiny little worms the size of a sesame seed ate for 17 years while they were underground to grow into a full sized cicada. Apparently it's tree sap sucked from the roots of the trees they drop out of when they hatch.
Apparently four years early is the most common deviation from 17.
Low quality audio from my window
in this video.
We got nothing here in good ol' south central. Thankfully.
Low quality audio from my window in this video.
Is that bird real?:eyebrow:
They are coming back next year, aren't they?
We had to cut down two big trees in our back yard this summer because they were becoming a liability, there was so much rot at the top.
[YOUTUBE]FwHmFALqrEU[/YOUTUBE]
So with them out of the way, we are going to put a new fence up around our backyard, and want to plant a bunch of native plants and trees. Really fix up the back yard. Test the soil first and treat as needed, All that stuff. We're starting to think about it all and make initial plans.
But the cicadas will maybe kill any saplings we plant in the next 9 months, won't they?
Yup, they're back next spring.
If they'll be small enough, you could consider wrapping them in gauze or netting. They're big bugs, so you don't need especially fine netting.
Duh. Why didn't I think of that. That's a great idea!
The murder hornets will sort them out
at the start of the last visitation, we were still relatively new to the US and went on a free community nature walk/smores thing with the sprogs (youngest a baby in a sling).
We learned about smores there. And cicadas -never even heard of them before. And we learned that some people don't think things through properly ....as they told all these young kids about groundhogs and groundhog day and then asked if they'd like to meet one...and brought out a very sad and very, very dead stuffed specimen.....
Then they told us all about how the evil developers were going to build a new high school on all of that land. The high school all the kids eventually went to :o
....as they told all these young kids about groundhogs and groundhog day and then asked if they'd like to meet one...and brought out a very sad and very, very dead stuffed specimen.....
***wait I'm getting old and confused, I forgot we did two of these things. It wasn't a groundhog -that one was on groundhog day, but there was something stuffed that had seen better days and was irrelevant to the theme of the walk. :(
Is that firewood glatt?
I hope so, but not for me. We don't need that much fire wood for our outside fire pit. It was big 4 truckloads worth. I hope somebody gets use out of it.
Yeah, there's a few thousand dollars worth of firewood in 4 truckloads.
That must be why they charged us much less than I was expecting to spend three days taking that tree down. Only $4500. Another outfit had quoted us $8k.
5 guys for 3 days.
I have no idea where the wood is going, but it would suck if it was going into a landfill.
I’ll tell you this though, I have no concerns about hurricane season for the first time since we bought this place.
They bucked it up what appear to be too thin rounds to make firewood.
From what I saw, you and the neighborhood were lucky to avoid damage and/or injury.