The best gift you can get a cicada is to plant a tree or plant many trees (teamtrees.org). You can also avoid using pesticides, squash invasive species that destroy cicada habitat (EAB, Spotted Lantern Flies), don’t chop down trees & other plans cicadas call home, don’t cut down forests to make room for giant warehouses (I’m aware of the irony), and don’t sub-divide existing forested lands.

Here are some gift ideas for humans. Skip to a section: T-shirts & mugs, cicada books, periodical cicada books.

Random cicada things

Insect Mesh Cage/Pavillion

When people ask me where should they put live cicadas, I recommend a Butterfly Pavilion. If it works for butterflies, it typically works for cicadas.

Cicada Books

Cicadas Strange and Wonderful by Laurence Pringle illustrated by Meryl Henderson

Cicadas Strange and Wonderful is non-fiction and well-illustrated. It’s meant for kids, but anyone who collects cicada merch should also get it.

Cicadas of North America: The Season of the Cicadas by Les Daniels.

I’ve known Les since the 1990s. In the early days of Cicada Mania, Les contributed many images to the site. The Season of the Cicadas is his book about North American cicadas and features many of his photos.

Cicadas of Australia: A photo guide to common cicadas of the Greater Sydney region by Nathan Emery.

Nathan Emery and his father David Emery, who has contributed many cicada photos to this site, are experts on the subject of the cicadas of Australia. A photo guide to common cicadas of the Greater Sydney region is Nathan’s field guide. It features a wealth of information and beautiful photos.

Periodical (17 & 13 Year) Cicada Books

Periodical Cicadas: The Brood X Edition by Gene Kritsky

Dr. Gene Kritsky has devoted his life to studying and promoting periodical cicadas. The Brood X Edition is specific to Brood X (next out in 2037), but much of the information applies to any brood.

Cicada: Exotic Views by Davy Shian.

Cicada: Exotic Views is a perennial classic about periodical cicadas. This book is illustrated with cartoons, like a comic book. It focuses on the diversity of reactions people have to periodical cicadas.

For Kids: Cecily Cicada

Cecily Cicada is an illustrated story about a cicada named Cecily, updated for 2020. Every 17 years the author asks me to promote it on CicadaMania.com. 🙂

Classic 2020 T-Shirts & Merch:

A Zazzle store of cicada merch. Mostly 2020/Brood X, but there are some annual bangers as well. Check back for sales.

“Keep Calm, They’re Only 17-Year Cicadas” Shirts:

for Men or Women.

Cute Cicada Cartoon

Get it on a mug, shirt, or hat.

Classic Cicada Mania Logo

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Roy’s Magicicada septendecim

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Classic Magicicada Illustration

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Roy’s Blue Eyed cicada

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Australia’s Green Grocer cicada

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Bug of Mystery

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At the start of 2018 Australia has been having an awesome cicada season, which should continue through to March, depending on the species and part of the country.

The best months of the cicada season in New Zealand are December – April.

Throughout the world, annual cicada emergences will follow their usual cycles.

Periodical Cicada Emergences

The World Cup Cicada, Chremistica ribhoi, will return after 4 years in Meghalaya, India.

Magicicada cicadas will return in 2018 in New York State after 17 years. Brood VII aka the Onondaga Brood can be found in the Finger Lakes area of New York.

Magicicada stragglers should also make an appearance in limited numbers.

• Brood XXII stragglers, emerging 4 years late, in mid-east Louisiana, south-west Mississippi, south-west Ohio and north-central Kentucky.
• Brood VIII stragglers, emerging 1 year early, in western Pennsylvania, eastern Ohio, and the West Virginia pan handle.

20,000 or so years ago the earth was a colder place. Glaciers covered much of North America, including many states that currently are home to Magicicada, and other species of cicadas. There were glaciers in Wisconsin as recently as 9,500 years ago. The area below the glaciers were dominated by taiga, a landscape dominated by sappy evergreens and grasses (mastodon food). Florida was three times the size it was today.

Map from the NOAA.

What I’m curious about is this:

• Where were the Magicicada 20-10 thousand years ago? Did they exist in a primordial form some place in the primordial woodlands of mega-Florida?
• How did deciduous trees (oak, maple, ask, etc) spread northward, and how did the Magicicada spread with them?
• Did the spread of deciduous trees northward into America play a part in the unusual life cycle of Magicicada, including the long lifecycle and 4 year accelerations?
• Were the Neotibicen and Neocicada also living in mega-Florida or perhaps Mexico, and then spread northward as temperatures rose?
• Were Okanagana able to exist in the colder, evergreen-dominated taiga of the time of the last glaciers?

For some reason this stuff intrigues me. Thank goodness my local library has a Jstor account.

Here’s something for Windows users: cicada cursors.

If you like to customize your PC, you can swap out your cursor with a cursor shaped like a cicada.

Download the cicada cursor it today (download and unzip).

Here’s a tutorial for changing your cursor.

I have no idea if you can change the cursor on a Mac or mobile device.

Update! Try the new Magicicada cursor (.cur file in .zip file)!

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:

I’m in the April edition of Wired magazine. Go to your newsstand and buy a stack.