The Cicada Mania Blog: News, Findings, and Discoveries About Cicadas.
Between now and the spring, I have to spend some time labeling the unlabeled species of cicadas on my site.
Want to know the latest comments happening on Cicada Mania?
The message board Archives can be useful for researching Broods that emerged in the late 90s and 00s.
→ Visit the message board archvies and scroll through 1000′s of cicada questions and sightings.
Any cicada fans who speak German, or are in Germany?
Sonja Beeker of the German radio program Neonlicht interviewed me last week. You can download the mp3 of the video from this page. It was my favorite interview of the season, believe it or not.
Here is a description:
Sie sind so klein. Aber sie machen einen ohrenbetäubenden Lärm. Schon eine einzige Zikade reicht, um einem den Schlaf für die Nacht zu rauben. Was aber, wenn Milliarden von Zikaden nach 17-jähriger Reifezeit schlüpfen und über die USA herfallen? Dann wird’s laut. Ein bisschen eklig. Vielleicht aber auch lecker. Wie man’s nimmt. Unsere Reporterin hat ein paar Ostküstenbewohner besucht, die sich auf die Plage vorbereiten.
I had my April Fool’s Day fun, except Cicada Mania fans are smart folks and figured it out immediately.
After 17 years I am shutting down Cicada Mania. I am starting a new site Fulgoridae Frenzy. twitter.com/cicadamania/st…
— Cicada Mania (@cicadamania) April 1, 2013
Also, Hipster Cicada made an appearance:
One way I have fun during cicada emergences is designing unique cicada buttons. This year I have magnets too.
I have more cicada pins in the store. Check them out.
Saturday the BBC stopped by Cicada Mania headquarters to interview me for a Periodical Cicada episode of their show Nature’s Weirdest. The episode will also feature Dr. Gene Kristsky, and other cicada experts. The show will air in January, and hopefully end up on NetFlix, BBC America or YouTube sometime after that. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b019f6kv Here’s a photo of the amazing crew that interviewed me:
Also, my friends David and Claire gave me this very nice cicada whistle from Peru:
Autumn (in North America) is usually a slow time for cicadas and this Cicada Mania website, so I have time to clean stuff up and decide what to do next to the site.
Now I turn to you, cicada fans, enthusiasts, and researchers: what would you like to see more of (or less of) on CicadaMania.com ? Please share your thoughts in the comments section of this post.
Looking forward, there’s the Brood I emergence next year in Virginia and West Virginia which should generate some buzz, and then Brood II in 2013 in the east which should be a big event.
Update (5/2011): I finally found one of these keychains, but I’m going to keep looking for more. Plus we have, Packaging scans from Ben, Packages and images found by Roy, and a scan from an Archie McPhee catalog from Suzanne M.
Once or twice a year someone e-mails Cicada Mania asking if we know where to
find the cicada keychain — you know, “the one that buzzes”. Although there
are many keychains which feature
cicadas (e.g. trapped in amber),
I’ve never found the cicada keychain online.
I haven’t found these in stores since Clinton was in office. Back in the day,
you could find them in mall stores like “The Nature Company”, “The Science Nook”
and “The Planet Store”. Once, in the late 90′s I asked the manager of one of these
stores about the these
keychains and she said: “we don’t carry them any more, the last batch was defective”.
She seemed angry that I even asked her about them. I wish I knew more. Maybe these
stores lost so much money because of these defective key chains that they all went
out of business? Or maybe they didn’t sell enough whale song CDs, glow-in-the-dark
moon stickers, or mystical crystals to pay the rent?
I’ve spent way too much time looking for these keychain online, and I’ve
pretty much given up hope.
There are two problems with searching for stuff like this online:
While searching for cicada keychain:
Online stores I’ve searched include:
More photos of the cicada keychain here: Cicada Keychain Photos.
Cicadas and Social Media
2014 Magicicada Sightings
In 2014, contribute your Magicicada/Periodical/17 & 13 Year cicada sightings to Magicicada.org. They will add your report to their Google map.
→ Magicicada.org
Discuss cicadas on Twitter
Use hash tags like #cicadas for general cicada issues. Use @cicadamania to get my attention.
→ Cicada Mania on Twitter
Discuss cicadas on Facebook
Once you’re done reporting your cicada sighting to magicicada.org, head over to Facebook to discuss your cicada experiences.
→ Cicada Mania Discussion Board on Facebook
Discuss cicadas with cicada experts
If you’re serious about cicadas, try the Entomology Cicadidae Yahoo group.
→ Entomology Cicadidae Yahoo group
Share your cicada photos, sounds and videos
Share your cicada photos and videos with the world:
→ Cicada Photos Group on Flickr
→ Cicadas on Pinterest
Cicada Mania Videos and Audio:
→ Cicada Mania on SoundCloud
→ Cicada Mania on Vimeo
→ Cicada Mania YouTube