Cicada Mania (Page 3) - Cicada Mania

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

October 22, 2011

What’s next for Cicada Mania?

Filed under: Cicada Mania — Dan @ 2:35 pm

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.

Comments (4)

May 5, 2011

The Legendary Lucky Cicada Keychain

Thee Legendary Lucky Cicada Keychain from Cicada Mania on Vimeo.

Update (5/2011): I finally found one of these keychains, but I’m going to keep looking for more. Plus we have, Cicada Keychain Parts, 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.

I’ve searched numerous online stores that specialize in novelties and keychains.
I’ve e-mailed these stores requesting that they stock these keychains — but I get no response.
I’ve searched ebay.
I’ve spend hours doing Google searches.

There are two problems with searching for stuff like this online:

Search engines have a hard time indexing online stores (for technical reasons
I won’t waste your time with), and…
Who knows how people would describe these things?
Are they keychains, key chains, keyrings, or key rings? Are they cicadas, locusts,
insects or bugs? Do they buzz, chirp, scream, or beep?

While searching for cicada keychain:

Online stores I’ve searched include:

Update: I recently tried to get the CEO of Archie McPhee to reintroduce this product:

@cicadamania As we are synced with Nature as well, we can only offer the singing cicada keyring every 17 years.

— Mark Pahlow (@mcpheeceo) May 13, 2014

Comments (1)

March 22, 2011

Cicada Mania Twitter

Filed under: Cicada Mania — Dan @ 3:22 pm

I’ve been “tweeting” the latest cicada news on Twitter. Follow Cicada Mania on Twitter…

Comments (2)

December 31, 2010

Happy New Year 2011!

Filed under: Cicada Mania — Dan @ 8:48 am

It’s 2011 in Australia now, so I’m wishing everyone a Happy New Year, particularly for those folks in Australia effected by flooding.

There should be a lot of interesting cicada news in 2011, particularly the emergence of Brood XIX 13-year Magicicadas in Arkansas, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Missouri, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia.

Comments (1)

January 16, 2010

Cicada Mania updates

Filed under: Cicada Mania — Dan @ 3:47 pm

New gallery: Australian cicadas found by Lisa Morgan’s kids in the Wet Tropics rainforest located in Far North Queensland, Australia. Features a Brown Bunyip and a Psaltoda.

New gallery: False cicada chimneys. Bangkok, Thailand.

And new audio/video from Joe Green:

Joe Green’s D. olympusa videos.

Joe Green’s N. hieroglyphica videos.

Joe Green’s M. septendecula calls.

Joe Green’s M. cassini calls.

Joe Green’s M. septendecim calls.

Comments (1)

December 23, 2009

Happy Holidays from Cicada Mania!

Filed under: Cicada Mania — Dan @ 6:27 am

Happy Holidays from Cicada Mania!

Cicada Christmas

Comments (0)

November 18, 2009

New site map organized by Genera and species

Filed under: Cicada Mania — Dan @ 8:48 pm

I spent about 24 hours over the past two weeks cleaning up the naming of cicadas on the site, updating Tibicen names, fixing typos, etc. I ended up with a new site map organized by Genera and species. Now it should be easier to find the cicadas you’re looking for, especially species outside of North America.

Comments (1)

June 1, 2009

13 Years of Cicada Mania

Filed under: Cicada Mania — Dan @ 4:48 pm

Cicada Mania is 13 years old.

In 1996, I started the site to document some Brood II Magicicada photos I took in my back yard and at a friend’s wedding, and the site took off from there.

The site has had 7 different URLs over the years.

In 2004, during the Brood X emergence, the site received 50,000 visitors in a single day and I was interviewed on CNN (Ted Nugent haircut in a ponytail):

2007 and 2008 were great as well. In 2007 I got to meet fellow cicada enthusiasts Roy Troutman, Gene Kritsky, Gerry Bunker and Joe Green, and I was interviewed for a Japanese TV show:

And in 2008 I drove out to Ohio and stayed with Roy Troutman, met Gene Kritsky again, and met John Cooley for the first time.

Here’s the original logo:

It’s been a fun 13 years.

Comments (4)

May 3, 2008

Cicada Mania featured on Surfin’ with Kirk!

Filed under: Cicada Mania — Dan @ 8:16 am

Cicada Mania was featured on WTAP’s Surfin’ with Kirk! Watch the video news report. Very Cool!!!

Surfin

Comments (0)

October 20, 2007

Jersey Blog Appearance

Filed under: Cicada Mania — Dan @ 7:34 am

Thanks to Roy Troutman for reminding me about my interview which appeared in the Star Ledger recently. It’s about Cicada Mania and blogging in general.

Comments (2)

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