Cicada Mania

5 days?

News:

Midwest braces for cicadas’ song (USA Today by Judy Keen), features interviews with David Marshall of UConn and yours truly.

Prepare to be invaded! Teenage cicadas here in time for Memorial Day. Nice picture of a tree trunk covered with cicadas.

Are You Ready For Cicadas? Prepare Your Plants, Trees For Insect.

Don’t reach for bug spray when cicadas come. “May cause harm: Animals eat the insects and could get sick from spray”. This is true.

Speaking of which, yes Virginia, people do eat cicadas: Cicadas are on the Menu. Includes recipe.

Emergence:

We haven’t seen an actual adult yet — just lots of nymph photos. The 2004 Brood X emergence kicked off on 5/14 in Illinois in 2004. I’m kind of surprised we haven’t seen at least one adult yet, but it will happen soon enough.

Photos

There are new cicada photos showing up on Flickr every day. Try cicadas and cicada. njicki and UmDaman have posted pictures of nymphs.

News articles:

After 17 years, cicadas are expected to make a noticeable appearance within weeks.

The Field Museum Prepares for the Summer of Cicadas

Bug Spray Won’t Fight Cicadas!!! Don’t spray cicadas, you’ll just end up taking out bees and your pets.

Company can help detect cicada arrival.

Cicadas as a sign of war, and other wild beliefs. Time to drag this old chestnut out… folks say cicada are harbingers of war, or that if you see a W in their wings, it means war. I can’t think of a time when a war isn’t happing somewhere in the world, so this myth is plausible just by virtue of human nature.

Cicadas: Lake County going all out for bugs.

Don’t Spray the Cicadas. This is an MP3 audio file.

Blog Posts

Cicadas ready to invade!!. Nice picture of a white eyed Magicicada. Most have reddish eyes.

A Cicada Invasion is about to Happen. Some pictures of unearthed nymphs.

17 year cicadas

Maps

This saves me the trouble of doing this myself. The Lake County Forrest Preserves have set up a Google Map. Enter your sightings in their map. And yeah, they call their website Cicada Mania too. What did Picasso say?

Plenty of pictures of cicadas in their nymph instar, but no adults yet. Waiting for photos…

Cicada recipe 1 courtesy of Kirk Moore. Get your kitchens ready!!! It’s almost cicada cookin’ time. (the idea of cooking cicadas makes me ill)

They’re heeere … : Area prepares for the return of cicadas. Note: the photo of the cicada is not a Magicicada, it’s a Tibicen.

So far we have Bull Valley, a possible in Lake Bluff, and Highland Park…

If you see cicadas don’t forget to take photos. Put them up on Flickr, the free photo sharing service, and use the broodxiii tag so others can find your Brood XIII cicadas. If you can, take a picture of a cicada with a newspaper or print out this web page and take a picture of the cicadas with that (for date reference).

Don’t forget to take video too, and put that video up on YouTube!

Cicadas in concert: May 22 sounds like the day for cicadas. May 22, or sooner! Obviously sooner because they’ve begun emerging in at least one place.

Young [wimpy] trees will be bugged the most by cicadas.

They’re back … Cicadas to return after a 17-year (by Joseph Boesen). Cicada Mania was interviewed for this story (so you know its good).

Earlier than expected, here’s some pictures of emerging cicadas in Highland Park, IL.

May 22nd is the date they were predicted to emerge, but thanks to warm weather and other factors…

The Rationale Behind the Cicadas’ Swarm — audio from Chicago Public Radio.

The Sound of a Billion Kitchen Blenders: The World’s Largest Cicada “Infestation” is Coming!

Brood XIII: The Reckoning.

Turning Cicada Shells Into Jewelry.

Cicadas expected to emerge May 22

Expert: Cicadas Will Invade May 22nd.

Coming soon to a backyard near you .

17-Year Cicadas Coming In 17 Days.

Cicada infestation or business opportunity?: yep — start selling tree netting and spicy Cicada dippin’ sauce.

Song makes 17-year comeback. The “Cicada Lover” song.

Video: Cicadas ready to invade Chicago.

(thanks to Roy and Google Alerts for the extra linkage)

Somebody asked for a picture of a cicada they can color with Crayons. Here you go: Magicicada Coloring Sheet PDF. You need the Adobe Acrobat Reader to view it on Windows, and Macs will display it without an extra plug-in.

Here’s what it looks like when you print it out: