This story has been all over the news, so I’m posting it. Champ the drug sniffing dog nearly chokes to death on 4 cicadas (video report). Don’t let your pets gorge themselves on cicadas. Like anything that’s an inch and a half long or longer, cicadas can become lodged in your pet’s throat, so keep a mindful eye on their insect dining habits.

It’s rare for me to set up a new gallery — I’m either very lazy or too busy…

Here’s our one any only 2007 Brood XIII gallery: Jan & Roger’s Brood XIII Magicicada Gallery.

View all of Joe Balynas’ Magicicada photos.

Brood XIII is all but gone in and few select areas (like Westmont IL for instance). Will you miss them? You might find a couple stragglers next year, but you’re going to have to wait until 2024 for the next Brood XIII emergence.

At this point you should start to see flagging from the Brood XIII cicadas: brown, dead leaves where the cicadas laid their eggs. This blog has a good picture of flagging. Don’t worry: the cicadas have helped out the tree by pruning the weak leaves and branches.

There is good news: the Tibicen cicadas are beginning to emerge. Tibicens emerge every year in small numbers — if you’re patient, should be able to find one of these shy cicadas in your yard or local park.

If you’ve willing to travel, you can see and hear the Brood XIV next year too.

Deanna’s cicada photos on Flickr are a nice representation of the Brood XIII emergence. Check them out whenever you want to reminisce.

More Brood XIII photos to come, and lots of other cicada fun is coming up, so stay tuned!

Update: make sure you check out all the cool images people added to Comments section of the CicadaMania MySpace page.

A few of you might have noticed the film crew following me around the Cicada Mania festival. They filmed me at the festival, as well as back in Jersey — a once in a life time (or maybe once in 17 years) experience. The news cast aired yesterday in Japan, but you might be able to see it on a show called “Morning Eye” in North America.

Here is the final news story:

Roy Troutman, Gerry Bunker and Joe Green also appear in the video.

Michael Jimms sent us this photo of a blue eyed Magicicada:

Michael won the last button in the blue/white/gray eyed cicada category.

Congratulations to all the winners. There are still prizes left in the contest: for Multi Colored Eyed cicadas, and for an emerging nymph with white eyes. Good luck.

A creamy white eyed cicada from Morton Grove by Judy Thorpe:

And…

A true-blue eyed cicada from Western Springs by Matt Weiss:

Here’s a white eyed cicada from Grayson Martin.

We got our first IOWA sighting!

Questions:

1. When will they be gone??? About 2 weeks after the last one emerges. By the time Independence day rolls around, most places will be “liberated” from them.
2. What’s that smell??? Like any rotting animal, cicadas emit a funky stank after they die. I think they smell like old bacon grease, other’s say Limburger cheese, wet dog…
3. I haven’t seen any cicadas yet, does that mean I won’t see/hear any? Probably; time to get in the car and go to them.

Locations:

• Cedar River near Atalissa, Iowa
• Lombard and Elmhurst are “cicada heaven”
• At Lake Geneva at Aurora University the Cicada were EVERYWHERE
• Singing in Wheaton
• Palos Heights is crawling with these things.
• All over the place in Wheeling, IL
• EVERYWHERE in Schiller Park
• Big Foot Beach State Park (southern Wisconsin next to Lake Geneva)
• Aurora,IL

This entry was submitted by Elias Bonaros and Barbara Rzeszutek, taken in Deerfield, IL: Click the image for a larger version — do it!

This entry was submitted by Chris Owen, taken at Lemon Lake County Park in Cedar lake, IN:

Here’s a gallery of white and blue eyed cicadas.