Cicada ManiaThere’s a pizza restaurant chain in the Cincinnati area called Snappy Tomato Pizza that occasionally runs commercials for Snappy Cicada Pizza. It’s a joke of course. Or is it? Maybe they’ll do it again in 2021.
Listen to the songs:
Have a listen to Dr. Chordate’s Periodical Cicada Graduation Song, with an intro by Dr. Chordate. “This is a graduation song: the larvae of the 17-year periodic cicada finally emerge from the ground to transform into adults.”
Elias Bonaros found cicadas in 2021 in Bohemia County Park and East Setauket.
Brood X periodical cicadas will emerge this spring (May) in the eastern U.S. — hopefully in Long Island as well. Chris Simon asked me to post this on the site. Brood X cicadas were hard to find in Long Island on 2004 — so we really want to find so, and how Long Islanders can help. Report cicadas with the Cicada Safari app.
Brood X may have breathed its last breath on Long Island! Or maybe not. This year may in fact reveal localities that we missed in 2004. It may capture people’s imagination just like the hunt for the last Ivory-Billed Woodpecker in Arkansas or the last Tasmanian Tiger in Tasmania.
Brood X cicadas were previously found on Long Island and it is unclear whether they are extinct or not! We are hoping to advertise the Cicada Safari app to your readers so they can help us find Brood X.
Attached is the Newsday article from 2004 that describes the previous Brood X emergence. Sites include Shirley, and Connetquot River State Park Preserve in Oakdale (Northeast section), and Ronkonkoma.
This locality info for Long Island is from the appendix of Simon and Lloyd 1982, J. N.Y. Ent. Soc.
It documents the historical decline of Brood X on Long Island as follows…
1902: Davis (1920) quoted the eighteenth report of the N.Y. State entomologist (1902. p. 113) as follows, “The insects were observed… at Wantagh. Nassau Co., also between Massapequa and Amityville, between Sayville and Oakdale, east of Patchogue to Brookhaven and also to the north of Medford and Holtsville, and a small brood [sic] northeast of Riverhead, all in Suffolk Co.” Davis (1907) reported that although a friend had seen hundreds of exuviae of the 17 -year locust in Prospect Park, Brooklyn. he had only obtained three adults and he “attributed their scarcity to the English Sparrow.”
1919: The New York Times of June 17th, 1919 (p. 25:3) talked with farmers in the vicinity of Farmingdale, Bethpage, and Massapequa who reported thousands of cicadas doing damage to fruit trees and other hardwoods. Old residents claimed that 17 years before they were not nearly so numerous. Daviis (1919) recorded” 1 7 -year cicadas singing at Mastic, L.L during the first week of June.” In another publication (Davis 1920) he noted them as occurring on South Country Road just cast of Carman’s River, and in the woods just east of Patchogue; also from Wantagh to Farmingdale and as far north as Central Park on Long Island; finally, north and east of Massapequa railroad station.
1936: The New York Times (June 12, 1936, p. 4:7) reported that the cicadas were found “first in Carmen Ave., Farmingdale … since then the swarms have been reported at Massapequa, and all through Suffolk scrub oak along the Motor Parkway from Medford westward to Farmingdale.” They were also seen along the Sunrise Highway in Massapequa Park.
1970: Newsday (June 5, 1970, p. 12) lists two exact localities Skylark Drive (Holtsville) and Springdale Drive (Ronkonkoma). They explained that “officials of the State Conservation Department and County Agricultural Extension Service said … that they have received hundreds of complaints this month about the insects. Most of the calls have come from an area including Ronkonkoma, Holtsville, Islip, and Sayville. where the influx is concentrated.” The same newspaper (June 23. 1970) reported 17-year cicadas in Bohemia on eighth Street near the South Side Sportsman’s preserve. They must have been abundant because “50 Bohemia residents … signed petitions appealing for help to fight the alarming problem of swarming cicada locusts [sic].”
Other, more recent, records…
1987: Suffolk Co. Long Island. Chris Simon and her student Andrew Martin collected periodical cicadas at Bohemia Equestrian Park in Oakdale and in Shirley.
2004: Suffolk Co. Long Island. Bryn Nelson of Newsday reports that periodical cicadas, “made only cameo appearances this year — first in East Setauket and later in Connetquot River State Park Preserve in Oakdale….Particularly vexing is the sputter at Connetquot, which reported masses of cicadas in its northeastern section both in 1987 and in 1970. Gary Lawton, a regional environmental education coordinator for New York State Parks, reported hearing a few cicadas at the park about three weeks ago….But after a few days, the calling abruptly stopped.” Residents of Shirley near the South Shore of Long Island, who saw them in 1987, did not see an emergence in their yards in 2004.
Some more locations from 1987 compiled by Thomas Kowalsick of the Cooperative Extension of Cornell University (specific addresses redacted):
Loughlin Drive, Shirley, NY
Happy Acres Drive, Shirley, NY
Malba Drive, Shirley, NY
Windus Drive, Shirley, NY
Peconic Street, Ronkonkoma, NY
Springdale Drive, Ronkonkoma, NY
Julia Goldback Avenue, Ronkonkoma, NY
Goldbach Avenue, Bohemia, NY
Connetquot River State Park, Oakdale, NY
Mayflower Lane, Setauket, NY
When the Woods Hum by Joanne Ryder, illustrated by Catherine Stock, is recognized by cicada researchers as one of the most factually accurate childrens’ books about periodical cicadas. It’s hard to come by these days because it is out of print.
It’s worth hunting down for cicada book completists. Sometimes it appears on Amazon.
Renowned cicada researcher Gene Kritsky, PhD., has a new book out: Periodical Cicadas: The Brood X Edition. It was available for Kindle and paperback on Amazon.com. I assume Gene will have an updated version in 2038.
Gene is also has a new link for the Cicada Safari App.
Not the Lucky Cicada Keychain, but something else:
7 Year Chirp
10293. Cicadas.
$5.95 3 CARDSThe cicada may seem like a simple and annoying insect. After all, the last thing you need on a steaming hot day is to hear the grating buzz and shrill of the cicada trying to attract a mate. However, the life of the cicada is so fascinating that it deserves four paragraphs of scintillating information on the back of our fancy blistercard. More attractive than a roach, yet not quite as fancy as a moth, these black rubber cicadas are 2-1/2″ long, detailed in pale green with translucent, veiny wings. You get three packages of three cicadas each.
Here’s a song titled Seventeen Year Cicadas by George Peter Block, Jr,:
I was chatting with John Cooley of Cicadas @ UCONN, and he suggested a list of cicadas heard in TV and Movies — so here it is. If you have any to add, leave them in the comments.
Around 9 minutes in. It’s less apparent in recent versions of the film, but you can hear it in older versions. Neotibicen tibicen cicadas can be heard in the background.
Around 1 hour 11 minutes into the film. You’ll hear a mix of cicadas including a Neotibicen pruinosus and Neotibien linnei.
I won’t say which episode, because the series is new, but a cicada prominently appears in at least 2 scenes in the series.
More to come… for now see the comments on Facebook.
Aside from Brood X, what else is happening in terms of Periodical cicadas?
I was wondering how much an adult Magicicada weighs. According to Richard Karban’s paper “Transient habitats limit development time for periodical cicadas,” a female Magicicada septendecim weighs approximately 1.2 grams. (Karban, R. (2014), Transient habitats limit development time for periodical cicadas. Ecology, 95: 3-8. https://doi.org/10.1890/13-1518.1)
According to the CDC website, the average adult American human weighs 84051 grams.
That means the average adult weighs as much as 70,043 Magicicada cicadas.
Image unrelated:
