Categories
Brood II Magicicada

More Brood II Straggler Reports

Sightings have been reported in Fredericksburg and Springfield Virginia on our message board (although the reports ended up in the wrong message board).

A sighting from the basement of a Staten Island home was reported on the Entomology-Cicadidae Yahoo Group (rip).

Many people have reported sightings on the magicicada.org site, including locations in Virginia, Maryland and of course North Carolina.

Bonus points if you spot a straggler with the massospora cicadina fungus:

Magicicada with Fungus

Finding cicadas with this fungus (which is relatively common during normal emergence years) would help disprove theories as to why they’re emerging early.

2 replies on “More Brood II Straggler Reports”

Until cicadas start practicing monogamy… but seriously, I don’t know. Somehow the fungus infects a few of them at first — that’s what would have to be prevented. Not sure how that happens.

I saw quite a few with this fungus last year. I just read about it on magicicada.org….

“This infection sterilizes the cicada but does not kill it immediately. These spores spread among the population, infecting other cicadas who will develop a secondary infection and whose abdomens will later break open, releasing sexual resting spores to infect the next generation of cicadas.”

Is there a way to prevent it from spreading? Is this one of the reasons there seemed to be less cicadas this time around?

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *