Cicada Mania

Dedicated to cicadas, the most amazing insects in the world.

May 15, 2009

More Brood II Straggler Reports

Filed under: Brood II | Magicicada — Dan @ 8:47 am

Sightings have been reported in Fredericksburg and Springfield Virginia on our message board (although the reports ended up in the wrong message board).

A sighting from the basement of a Staten Island home was reported on the Entomology-Cicadidae Yahoo Group.

Many people have reported sightings on the magicicada.org site, including locations in Virginia, Maryland and of course North Carolina.

Bonus points if you spot a straggler with the massospora cicadina fungus:

Magicicada with Fungus

Finding cicadas with this fungus (which is relatively common during normal emergence years) would help disprove theories as to why they’re emerging early.

2 Comments »

  1. Dan says:

    Until cicadas start practicing monogamy… but seriously, I don’t know. Somehow the fungus infects a few of them at first — that’s what would have to be prevented. Not sure how that happens.

  2. Christina says:

    I saw quite a few with this fungus last year. I just read about it on magicicada.org….

    “This infection sterilizes the cicada but does not kill it immediately. These spores spread among the population, infecting other cicadas who will develop a secondary infection and whose abdomens will later break open, releasing sexual resting spores to infect the next generation of cicadas.”

    Is there a way to prevent it from spreading? Is this one of the reasons there seemed to be less cicadas this time around?

Leave a comment. Questions about plants or snakes are deleted.

Leave a Reply to Dan Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Cicada T-shirts