Brood X is coming soon.
RugerNiner
Member Posts: 12,636 ✭✭✭
It’s an underground movement now, but it will be all the buzz this spring and summer.
This year will mark the re-emergence after 17 years of Brood X, or the Great Eastern Brood, of periodical cicadas – those large, winged, kind of scary-looking but mostly harmless flying insects known for their almost deafening buzz.
“The end of May through June, it can get pretty loud – if you are in an area where they are numerous, there can be hundreds of thousands, or millions, of them,” said Howard Russell, an entomologist (insect scientist) at Michigan State University.
One of the largest broods of periodical cicadas in the nation, Brood X will emerge this spring in 15 states: Delaware, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, North Carolina, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, as well as Washington, D.C.
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They say they're in cycles, but we get small amounts every year. Some years there's more than others.
And I can hear them year round. At least that's what the ringing in my ears sounds like.
Been there for 1970, 1987, 2004 and now 2021. Smack dab in the middle in Maryland. Dogs love them. My beagle in 2004 could hear them underground and it drove her nuts. Once they emerged she snacked on them for hours. I have 2 racoon hounds and a black lab so I’m looking forward to seeing how they react
I remember them well growing up in as a kid in Ohio. I have heard them here in SC many times just not usually a big hatch. In reading your list of States, how can SC, being located between NC and Georgia, not be listed individually??
I think it is pretty cool how they leave their mostly intact carcasses on a branch or tree and pull a disappearing act
My dogs eat them like they are treats, I cannot wait.
We always called them locusts, although that's not really correct. I knew when I started hearing them in the summer, it was almost time to go back to school. And we'd gather the shells off trees and random places.
That's a big scary bug. They'd get into the building at work and buzz around in the florescent lights. One guy there had "pet" tarantulas. So he'd grab them in his hand and put them in a cup or something and take them home for spider suppertime.
My daughter found this guy emerging from his shell and we kept taking photos of him. This took a few hours.
The shells are thin & brown in color.
When you find them empty, they're split at the top of the back. Top of the spine kind of thing.
You can see he's green.
Some of the photos are better than others. You can see here how he leaves a replica in the shell on the tree.
Here he's fully out of the shell. You can see it's dark now and he stayed like this into the night. In the morning, only the shell was there.
Hope that helps for you guys who don't live in Brood X states.
I actually kind of enjoy hearing the sounds they make,.......reminds me of when I was a kid.
as diver-rig posted I have a similar fate .
I have them 24/7 sounds like at least 50 sounding off at the same time in my ears
I will guess the day after I kick off and planted they will find a cure , but then again when I kick off the nose will no longer bother me
What's wrong with your nose? Don
Well it's a bit large and does not work too well it was damaged when my face and head went thu a windshield as a kid head on and I was standing up in front seat I was about 18 months old
But my spelling yes I screwed that one up
Lol you got me on that
Back in the late 60's or early 70's NE Ohio had a huge outbreak of them. We were at my Uncles house for a Memorial day family gathering. There were about 20 or so of my first cousins there. We gathered them by the 100's towards evening and put them in the BBQ' grill coals.
They popped like popcorn when the heat boiled their innards. It was great fun.
Ah, the good memories of childhood fun with family.
Chickens seem to like them.
"The end of May through June, it can get pretty loud – if you are in an area where they are numerous,"
Most days a similar sound is all I hear.
My dogs love to eat them too.
Cool time lapse @tomh.
As US cicadas go I think they are fairly small. Not the smallest, but much smaller than the Dog Day cicada pictured above. Some of the tropical cicadas are barely 1/2". Pinned a couple of thousand of those for the MU entomology collection in the very late 50's.
Around here, they are called locusts, and the copperheads will gather under the trees to feast on them as they emerge from the ground. Certain times of the year, we have to be aware of that. A friend's granddaughter got bitten last year. We find the shells every year, so not a 17 year cycle I guess.
It states in The Good Book that John the Baptist lived on locusts and wild honey. So I recon here is another item a survivalist could get by on.
there are a few every year, they build to the maximum amount and that is every 17 years, then they will start dropping off again till the next 17 year peak.........
There are actually quite a number of species. The largest and most common are the dog day cicadas, but most areas of the country have additional species, some pretty restricted to certain habitats.
You can use any common name you like, but locusts are grasshoppers that swarm. Completely different orders, Orthoptera and Hemiptera.
I know fish love them. Bass, bluegill, carp everything feeds on them when they hit the water.