Cicada army, originally uploaded by selenium2000.

Some folks will find this terrifying.

It’s going to be 3 more years until the next 13 year Magicicada emergence, and 4 more years until the next 17 year emergence, so I’m going to have to find other interesting insect-related stuff to post on this blog while things are quiet.

Six Legged Soldiers is a new book Jeffrey Lockwood that explores how insects have been used in warfare. I’m not certain if the book mentions cicadas, but I do know for a fact that the US military has experimented with cicadas.

Here’s a blurb about the book:

Oxford University Press has just published a book on the many weirdly creative, truly frightening, and ultimately powerful ways in which insects have been used as weapons of war, terror, and torture. Six-Legged Soldiers: Using Insects as Weapons of War (October | 400 pages) by Jeffrey Lockwood is a remarkable story of human ingenuity—and brutality—and is the first comprehensive look at the use of insects as weapons of war, from ancient times to the present day. Beginning in prehistoric times and building toward a near and disturbing future, the reader is taken on a journey of innovation and depravity as Lockwood details the threats of ecoterrorism that face us today.

This subject definitely interests me.

Amazon has it now at a discounted price.

Bonus:

Here’s some articles, not necessarily from the book, about cicadas and the military provided by the author:

FIRST, perhaps the reader saw something about the CICADA device (which is not an insect, despite the clever acronym). Here’s an abstract from the web with my emphasis added (http://72.14.205.104/search?q=cache:BX4FiPfAgOwJ:www.nrl.navy.mil/vrs/pdfs/06-1226-1085.pdf+cicada+navy+research&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=2&gl=us)

High Packing Efficiency EAV for Local Area Seeding

The mass deployment of electronic payloads and sensors over a local area can be useful for controlling information transfer in the battle space. To effectively seed the area of interest, precise payload delivery is required. A method of deploying these payloads is via a large number of expendable aerial vehicles (EAVs). These vehicles must be simple, both in assembly and flight control, and have a high packing efficiency. Packing efficiency is required so that a large number of such vehicles can be deployed from small canisters or pods. This paper will describe the Close In Covert Autonomous Disposable Aircraft (CICADA). The paper will present the design strategy for packing efficiency, along with the associated control system and mission level interface design. Conclusions on the feasibility of such an EAV will bedrawn based on design studies and real-world experiments

Second, perhaps the reader saw an article on cicada research being conduced at the Indiana University some years ago, which may be continuing (http://72.14.205.104/search?q=cache:B3f2McXoAgEJ:www.homepages.indiana.edu/051404/text/research.shtml+cicada+navy+research&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=3&gl=us); this work involved the study of insects but had no evident connection to their use as either weapons or defensive systems:

In addition to community recruits, ground zero for cicada research is Naval Surface Warfare Center, Crane Division, a 30-minute drive from the IU campus. Jim Speer, a professor in the department of geography and anthropology at Indiana State University, has teamed with Clay in researching the environmental impact created by the cicada emergence. Clay also is focusing research at the IU nature preserve. Untamed patches of forest underbrush are prime cicada breeding ground, due to plenty of small trees that are preferred by egg-laying cicadas. During the past several years, Clay and his team of graduate student researchers have attempted to gather information on how many cicadas will emerge. Now, during the current emergence, they will document the potential environmental impact.

THIRD, it may be that the reader saw a recent article about US Navy involvement in cicada studies in Massachusetts (http://72.14.205.104/search?q=cache:mvQt9YWc5-kJ:www.capecodonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article%3FAID%3D/20080617/NEWS/806170305/-1/NEWS01+cicada+navy+research&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=7&gl=us), although I have no idea what the military was up to in this regard there’s no indication that weaponization was on the agenda (but don’t put anything past the creative minds of our military planners):

UConn evolutionary biology professor John Cooley’s department has tracked cicadas for 40 years. He was in Kentucky yesterday and has put 6,400 miles on his Subaru driving the southern limits of Brood XIV, part of the same cicada population as the one on Cape.

“There’s no way one person can do it,” Cooley said, grateful for the assistance of people like Bunker. Bunker was recently listed as a co-author, with Cooley, of a paper on Connecticut’s cicada distribution. In a few weeks he will help U.S. Navy researchers coming to the Cape to study cicadas.

“Those so-called amateurs know more than the professionals,” Cooley said.

Someone asked me for photos of cicadas from the south of France; my curiosity peaked, I did a search. Cigales is the French word for cicadas, and sud is the French word for south. I took fives years of French in school; I’ve forgotten a lot of it due to lack of use, but I remember those words. Searching sites written in French using Google I came across: Cigale à Porquerolles, insecte de provence, sur la côte méditerranéenne.

Considering the large number of illustrations, photos and information Cigale à Porquerolles, insecte de provence, sur la côte méditerranéenne is essentially the French Cicada Mania — in fact, it’s better than that. It’s the French Massachusetts Cicadas.

Check the site out. Even if you can’t read French, the photos and illustrations speak for themselves, and you’ll get a chance to see what cicadas look like in France.