Matt Berger was able to coerce a cicada nymph to enter the adult phase (instar) by raising it indoors (where it is warmer). Congratulations to Matt!
I took a Brood XIV nymph i found under a rock about a week ago, put some soil in a pot, poked a cicada sized hole in the soil and let the cicada burrow in. I wanted to see if I could make them emerge early. I put it in my house where it is warm. It worked! I now have a male (im guessing M. cassini) that just emerged from that hole and shed his skin and is now drying. Probably the first Magicicada to emerge all year! Earliest emergence I have ever heard of (even if it was assisted). Thought it might be interesting for Cicadamania.
Here are some pictures!
Here’s the nymph:
Here’s the adult leaving the nymph skin:
Here’s the teneral adult, still white in color (I will turn black soon enough):
Gene Kritsky, a professor of biology at the College of Mount St. Joseph, said this year most of the bugs are expected to appear in the area east of Interstate 71.
Gene Kritsky, a professor of biology at the College of Mount St. Joseph, says in a news release that cicadas are coming to eastern Cincinnati this May.
Video:
NECN.com: Cicada pheomenon interview with entomologist Doug Fraser. Very good.
Gene Kritsky, a cicada expert at the College of Mount St. Joseph in Cincinnati, says their appearance will be spotty. That could be caused by a number of factors, including development that has dramatically changed landscapes since the early 1990s.
A Cape Cod artlce:
Cape Cod Times: Creeped out by creepy-crawly season on Cape
Periodical cicadas went underground on the Cape 17 years ago, and have been living off tree sap ever since. Experts expect them to emerge from their holes all at once, probably on a night in early May. They can number in the millions per acre, and cling to any vertical surface after coming from their holes, to molt, then fly up into the tree tops to mate.
Hey folks, The Mount’s Cicada Web Site is monitoring the ground temperature in the Cincinnati area. Today it was up to 59.8ºF. Why is that important you ask? Well, once the soil temperature hits 65ºF (8″/20cm deep) the cicadas will emerge. Just 5ºF to go, and yes, cicadas will emerge from sunny areas before shaded areas because the soil will be warmer. (thanks Gene)
BTW, the Cincinnati press is finally catching on that another emergence is about to happen (I think they’re a bit jaded from Brood X).
Here’s a video news cast from YouTube called Cicadas invade CapeCast. I assume “Cape” refers to Cape Cod. Good information in video form.
Charleston Daily Mail: After 17 years, cicadas set to reappear for a few noisy weeks:
Cicadas will start appearing in southern West Virginia – including much of Kanawha County – starting in May. They have black bodies about an inch and a half long, red beady eyes and a shrill song.
“They’re a phenomenon,” said Miller, the golf course superintendent at The Golf Club at Southport in Mashpee. His job is all about controlling bugs, but Miller sees no harm done by the cicadas who feed on watery tree sugars.
Penn.com: Scientists abuzz about cicadas:
“The amazing thing is that there have not been very good records kept on Brood XIV in Pennsylvania,” said Marten Edwards, an entomologist at Allentown’s Muhlenberg College.
Edwards is among a team of insect experts planning to use Global Positioning Systems to document this year’s emergence. National Geographic is supporting the work through a grant to the University of Connecticut, university biology professor John Cooley said.
It may be extra noisy around trees located across Kentucky this year due to Brood XIV of the Periodical Cicada. All of Kentucky, except for the Purchase Areas, should expect some activity from the periodical cicada this year.
Towers: Seasonal cicadas to infiltrate Southern Seminary in May :
Once every 17 years a species of periodical cicada pop out of the ground in numbers too big to be ignored, often at densities of 10,000 to 100,000 per acre.
Home and Garden with John Marra: The Cicada: Nature’s Pruning Machine. Includes video!!!
First of all, how would you like for someone to come to your landscape and prune your trees free of charge? That’s not a chance happening but something that will happen whether or not you agree.
The free pruning service will be in the form of insects. Yep, I said insects, more specifically the 17 Year Periodical Cicada or Locust as some people call them.
Kentucky.com: Cicadas begin cyclic racket:
We’ve had drought and floods, and now, a plague of locusts.
OK, the billions of noisy, red-eyed teenagers emerging soon from the ground beneath your feet aren’t really locusts, although they often are mistakenly called that.
Periodical Cicadas is a classic cicada website that explains most of the information you need to know all in one page, with lots of great photos. It’s one of my favorites.
and
Regardless of the fact that there are not periodical cicadas emerging in the Chicago area this year, the Chicago Cicadas blog is still tracking them.
Here are some new photos from Roy Troutman that will give you a good idea of what to look for when searching for signs of cicadas in your yard:
This is a pair of Magicicada nymphs, much like you might find when gardening or turning over logs or stones in your yard.
See those beige globs of soil amongst the leaves and debris? Those are called cicada chimneys. They are a sure sign that a cicada nymph is below the soil, and will emerge in a few days or weeks.
Look closely at this picture and you’ll see holes in the ground. Those are holes that cicada nymphs have dug, and they’re another sure sign of where a cicada will emerge.
On May 1st we’ll start making predictions as to when they’ll start to emerge.
You can play an important role this year in documenting the Brood XIV 17 year cicada emergence. Brood maps are built using data from scientists and people like you. This year we have an opportunity to build a better Brood XIV map, but the scientists who collect the data will need your help.
Where to post your sightings
The two main web sites where you will be able to post your sightings this year are:
Gene Kritsky’s new enhanced cicada site is now up here: THE MOUNT’S CICADA WEB SITE. The new site will feature much of the information you’ll need to know for 2008, including maps, a place to enter your cicada sightings, podcasts and more. You’ll want to bookmark this site.
Gene’s cicada temperature experiments
Gene is looking for folks to report where and when a emergence occurs in their yard/neighborhood/local park etc. “I would like to find several of your readers who are willing to let us know the day that cicada emerge in good numbers in their locations. I would like to test the emergence formula at several sites.” A good number would be an aggregation of approximately 25 cicadas on a single tree. Like the picture on this page. So, be sure to head to Gene’s site and make a report if the opportunity arises.
Nymphs in Long Island
Andrew from Long Island sent us photos of nymphs and soil with many cicada tunnels from Satauket L.I. Looks like 2008 will be a good year for Long Island cicadas.
Roy Troutman sent me these photos of temperature loggers that allow cicada experts, like Gene Kritsky, to measure the ground soil temperature, and improve their formulas for predicting Magicicada emergences.
We [Gene Kristsky and Roy Troutman] buried 3 temperature probes & tied one on a tree branch for air readings. The temperature loggers will take a very accurate reading every 10 minutes & after the emergence has started in full swing Gene will dig them up & hook them to a usb cable & download all the data to his laptop for study. He [Gene] is trying to determine the exact temperature that they will emerge so he can fine tune his formula for calculating emergence times.
Last year Gene’s emergence formula calculator (try it!) did a good job of predicting the Brood XIII emergence, and the 2008 temperature study should only improve it.
You might be able to participate in the 2008 cicada temperature study. If you’re interested, contact Gene Kritsky.
John Cooley, one of the folks behind the Michigan Cicadas cicada site and the Cicada Central site now has a third site, which promises to have the best and most up to date Magicicada information. The new site is magicicada.org.
This site is designed to serve several purposes for 2008:
It is a place where we are directing people to report cicada emergences, so that the records may be collected and geocoded.
It’s got the best set of brood maps yet.
It mirrors the information on Cicada Central.
It will have better photos (the species photos for M. tredecim are second generation, but I’m working on even better ones).
