Author: Dan

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Brood XIV Magicicada

Hogs and Cicadas in Tennessee

Lynn Faust, author of the book Fireflies, Glow-worms, and Lightning Bugs, wrote us in early May concerned that the wild hogs in her area had rooted up and eaten Brood XIV cicadas about to emerge. Hogs are omnivores and are excellent at finding food buried underground, so her assumption makes sense.

She told us that the Turkey Camp on Greasy Creek had hundreds of intact pre and post emergence cicada turrets in 2008, with lots of chorusing. However, in 2025, there were no intact cicada turrets where the hogs plowed up the ground. There were plenty of fragments of turrets, but no adult cicadas or their shells (shed skins).

You can see the hob rooting in Lynn’s photos:

Hog rooting.

Hog rooting.

Any impacts to cicada populations, like hog rooting, is interesting to people who study cicadas.

Good news!

Fortunately some cicadas survived, in the hog-plowed areas, and there was no impact in the areas where the hogs did not plow up the ground.

News from Lynn:

Today 10 days later (May 19, 2025) than first visit, completely different!

All previous locations still singing loudly by the 1000s, millions?

Greasy Creek drainage was also singing loudly!

In the plowed up areas, there remained no cicada skins and no evidence and broken mud towers.

BUT, away from the roads much of the forest was intact and apparently plenty made it up into the treetops and they are singing and courting mightily now.

So I wanted you to know the happy ending. Those hogs won a good cicada buffet, but Cicada Brood 14 won the season!

Here are some of Lynn’s photos. All photos in the post are copyright of Lynn Faust.

Adult Magicicada

Adult Magicicada

A trio of cicadas

Categories
Okanagana Tibicinini

Okanagana monochroma, a cicada that thrives in a serpentine ecosystem

Okanagana monochroma, a newly described cicada, thrives in a serpentine ecosystem in Northern California.

Read about it in the paper: Smeds, E.A. & Chatfield-Taylor, W. (2025) A new species of Okanagana native to a unique serpentine ecosystem in Northern California (Hemiptera: Auchenorrhyncha: Cicadidae). Zootaxa, 5636 (3), 487–498.

Here is the abstract from the paper:

Okanagana monochroma sp. nov. is described from a unique and geographically isolated serpentine ecosystem in Northern California. The new species is diagnosed from other Okanagana Distant by a combination of morphological and bioacoustic characters. We provide a description of the calling song, habitat, and host plant associations of O. monochroma sp. nov., and present hypotheses for possible endemism models to explain its remarkably narrow geographic range, which may be the smallest of any North American cicada.

I wonder if the name monochroma refers to the fact that the cicada is almost entirely one color. Serpentine is rock that forms when ultramafic (high in magnesium & iron) magma metamorphosizes with sea water, typically at oceanic vents, sea mounts, and other volcanically active areas on ocean floors. When ocean floors are thrust above continents, we often end up with serpentine rock and soils on dry land. Serpentine rich soils are a challenge for plant life, and they usually lead to unique plants adapted to serpentine. I assume this cicada is adapted to one of these special plants.

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Brood I Brood X Brood XXII Magicicada Periodical Stragglers

Magicicada stragglers everywhere in 2025

Magicicada periodical cicadas often emerge earlier or later than expected. This phenomenon is called straggling, and the individual cicadas that emerged earlier or later are called stragglers. Magicicada are presumed to straggle for a number of reasons including subterranean overcrowding and the effects of urban heat islands on subterranean environments (a recent phenomenon). Evolutionarily speaking, it is a mechanism that allows them to break away from their original brood and form a new one. Right now on the homepage of the UCONN Cicada site they have a good story about how Brood XIV connects to Brood X, which connects to VI, which connects to II.

Stragglers, in the past, were observed and documented (MORRIS,J. G. 1870. Seventeen-year locust two years too late. Amer. Ent., 2: 304.) but it is much easier to do so today thanks to apps like iNaturalist, Cicada Safari, and mobile phones and social media in general.

So, where are we observing stragglers in 2025?

Down in the Baton Rouge area of Louisiana, Brood XXII is emerging 2 years early (iNaturalist Map). Brood XXII typically has a 13-year lifecycle.

Brood XXII

There are many Brood X stragglers emerging in the Washington D.C. area (iNaturalist Map).

DC Brood X

Brood I stragglers are appearing in the Roanoke, Virginia area emerging four years early. (iNaturalist map).

Roanoke

There are a handful of Brood X stragglers in the Princeton, NJ area. (iNaturalist Map).

And there are definitely more…

If you want to look for stragglers, online, you can use iNaturalist or the Cicada Safari app. Here is a map with all the Cicada Safari sightings on it.

And here’s a map that plots all the Broods, courtesy of Cicadas @ UCONN:

Two notes:

1) The general public does not like the term stragglers when applied to cicadas that emerge early, because straggling generally means to be late, not early. Marlatt referred to them as precursors (Marlatt, 1989). You can use that term if you like.
2) People called cicadas locusts in the recent past. Scientifically speaking and in modern times, a locust is a grasshopper. Cicadas and grasshoppers are very different insects, but they can emerge in large numbers and do some damage to plants (cicadas cause flagging on trees, while locusts eat everything), hence the confusion.

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Allen F. Sanborn Chalumalna Lamotialnini

Lesser Antilles Cicada aka Chalumalna martinesis gets a new Tribe.

The Lesser Antilles Cicada aka Chalumalna martinesis is a cicada found in the Lesser Antilles islands, for certain in Saint Martin (see sightings on iNaturalist).

Cicada researcher Allen Sanborn has a new paper titled Redescription, illustration and higher taxonomy of the Lesser Antilles cicada Chalumalna martinesis Boulard, 2001 (Hemiptera: Cicadidae: Cicadettinae).

This paper is of particular interest as it places Chalumalna martinesis this cicada in the Trible Lamotialnini, which is the same Trible as Magicicada periodical cicadas found un the U.S.

From the Abstract:

The genus Chalumalna is reassigned to Lamotialnini Boulard, 1976 based on the presence of conjunctival claws on the aedeagus and the lack of a developed uncus. Brevialavenosa Sanborn, 2021 and Chrysolasia Moulds, 2003 are shown to be members of Lamotialnini as well, expanding the tribal distribution to include the Caribbean, South and Central America.

Categories
Allen F. Sanborn Megatibicen U.S.A.

Megatibicen pronotalis hesperiu

Looks like there is a new sub-species of Megatibicen pronotalis, to go with Megatibicen pronotalis pronotalis (Davis, 1938) and Megatibicen pronotalis walkeri (Metcalf, 1955) called Megatibicen pronotalis hesperiu. I am going to guess that ‘hesperiu’ refers to the Greek word for evening or western. If it’s western, maybe the hesperiu is an offshoot of M. pronotalis pronotalis.

As on 3/27 I have not read the paper. You can access it here https://mapress.com/zt/article/view/zootaxa.5609.4.2.

See also the The Cicadas of North America Book which inspired the description of this new cicada species.

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Books Brood XIV Gene Kritsky

A new Gene Kritsky book: The Pilgrims’ Promise: The 2025 Emergence of the Periodical Cicada Brood XIV

Looks like Doctor Gene Kritsky has a new periodical cicada book: The Pilgrims’ Promise: The 2025 Emergence of the Periodical Cicada Brood XIV.

Get it on Amazon, or your favorite book dealer.

Like clockwork, Gene is back with another book about one of the major periodical cicada broods found in the U.S.A. This time it is for Brood XIV (14). Gene’s books are the “only game in town” so to speak, when it comes to periodical cicadas. They detail the facts about the insects, tell you where you can find them, and include folklore and legends about the insects.

The Pilgrims’ Promise: The 2025 Emergence of the Periodical Cicada Brood XIV

Categories
Australia Cyclochila

A big year for cicadas in Australia. Quit your job. Go there now.

Green Grocer Toy

Green Grocer Cicada image by Bron Green Grocer Cicada image by Bron.

2024 is shaping up to be a HUGE year for Green Grocer aka Cyclochila australasiae cicadas in Australia. Don’t believe me? Check out this article in the Sydney Morning Herald, watch the sightings pour into iNaturalist, look at the trends in Google Trends, or chat with observers on Cicada Discussion, Science and Study Group.

Looking at data from Google Trends(columns) and iNaturalist(lines), it looks like 2024 will be the best year in over ten years, with 2020, 2017 and 2013 being peak years (but not the biggest). iNaturalist is also a relatively new app/website; my guess is its user base wasn’t big enough until 2019 to compare to Google Trends.

Cicada Trends for Australia

While some Green Grocers appear every year, there is a periodicity at play. With the little data below it would seem there are two 7 year groups: one 2013 to 2020, and one 2017 to 2024. I’m making assumptions.

If my boss fires me tomorrow, I’m headed to Australia.

Categories
Exuvia Toys and Amusements

Cicada Sniper Gashapon Toy

I spotted this odd gashapon (Japanese gumball machine) toy featuring a cicada exuvia with a sniper molting from it on Aliexpress.

Gashapon toy

Categories
Neotibicen U.S.A.

A short cicada summer in central New Jersey

Adult Neotibicen tibicen 2024

Most of my cicada experience happens in the state of New Jersey, particularly central New Jersey (which does exist: it is comprised of Middlesex, Sommerset, Hunterdon and Mercer counties). Typically, in central and northern New Jersey, the summer cicada season will kick off in late June with the emergence of Neotibicen lyricen and end with the grinding calls of Neotibicen canicularis in the middle of September. Central New Jersey has these annual cicada species: Neotibicen lyricen (both sub-species), Neotibicen linnei, Neotibicen tibicen, Neotibicen winnemanna, Neotibicen canicularis, and possibly Megatibicen grossus in the south, and Okanagana rimosa in the north-west. Periodical cicadas are also found in the area, but not in the summer, and not in 2024.

Neotibicen tibicen aka Morning Cicadas (most call them Swamp Cicadas — I do not because it is not a helpful description) are abundant in my location and do well with both Spruce and Maple trees.

The summer of 2024 was a strange one:

  • I didn’t find my first Morning (Neotibicen tibicen tibicen) cicada until July 7th (about a week late), found my last one on August 9th (about two weeks early).
  • The last cicada I heard sing was during the last week of August, about two weeks early.
  • June high temperatures were 5 degrees Fahrenheit hotter than average (avg. 1991-2020), and there was 30% less precipitation. A HOT and DRY start.
  • July high temperatures were 2 degrees Fahrenheit hotter than average (avg. 1991-2020), and there was 20% less precipitation. A hot and DRY mid-season.
  • August high temps were flat, but there was +51% more precipitation. Average temperatures, and wet finale.
  • I used Weather Underground for 2024 averages, and Current Results for historical data.
  • It is worth nothing that Cicada Killer Wasps were plentiful and productive.

Neotibicen cicadas are around every where, but there are good years and great years. 2024 was not great. I don’t know if the extra HOT and dry weather had an impact, but it may have. Lots of “maybes”.

Here’s some photos of molting Neotibicen tibicen for you to enjoy:

Molting Neotibicen tibicen 2 2024

Molting Neotibicen tibicen 3 2024

Molting Neotibicen tibicen 2024

Categories
Australia Cystosoma

Bladder Cicadas are out in Australia

Bladder Cicadas are out in Australia, as reported by Ben McBurney on the Facebook Cicada Science & Discussion group.

Bladder Cicadas are green, sing at night, and have large abdomens. Are they katydid mimics, or just filling the same niche? Seems like it. According to Ben they sound like frogs, so maybe they’re frog mimics as well.

More to explore: