Dedicated to cicadas, the most amazing insects in the world.
Brood XIII cicadas are a bunch of slackers. Brood XIV stragglers (Brood XIV isn’t due until next year) have already emerged and imagined into their adult form around Ohio.
Here’s some photos from Matt Berger:
What’s up Brood XIII? What are you waiting for? An invitation?
Illinois, Iowa, Indiana and Wisconsin aren’t the only states that can look forward to periodic cicadas.
Brood XIV stragglers are beginning to emerge in Ohio. So far we’ve had reports of chimneys from Roy and some photos of nymphs taken by Matt Berger in Terrace Park, Ohio (hopefully he’ll let us post the pics). Stragglers are periodic cicadas the emerge a year or more ahead or behind schedule. Brood XIV is due to emerge in many states next year (KY, GA, IN, MA, MD, NC, NJ, NY, OH, PA, TN, VA, WVA), but a few will emerge this year instead.
Here’s a photo of a cicada chimney taken by Roy Troutman in Ohio.
Plenty of pictures of cicadas in their nymph instar, but no adults yet. Waiting for photos…
Cicada recipe 1 courtesy of Kirk Moore. Get your kitchens ready!!! It’s almost cicada cookin’ time. (the idea of cooking cicadas makes me ill)
They’re heeere … : Area prepares for the return of cicadas. Note: the photo of the cicada is not a Magicicada, it’s a Tibicen.
So far we have Bull Valley, a possible in Lake Bluff, and Highland Park…
If you see cicadas don’t forget to take photos. Put them up on Flickr, the free photo sharing service, and use the broodxiii tag so others can find your Brood XIII cicadas. If you can, take a picture of a cicada with a newspaper or print out this web page and take a picture of the cicadas with that (for date reference).
Don’t forget to take video too, and put that video up on YouTube!
Earlier than expected, here’s some pictures of emerging cicadas in Highland Park, IL.
May 22nd is the date they were predicted to emerge, but thanks to warm weather and other factors…
Somebody asked for a picture of a cicada they can color with Crayons. Here you go: Magicicada Coloring Sheet PDF. You need the Adobe Acrobat Reader to view it on Windows, and Macs will display it without an extra plug-in.
Here’s what it looks like when you print it out:
According to the cicada emergence formula, it looks like May 22nd might be the date.
Update (5/4/2024) Here is a link to a video on Twitter/X from the Chicago Botanical Gardens featuring the Garden’s plant healthcare supervisor, Tom Tiddens. He shows us how to net a tree to protect it from cicada egg laying.
As you may have heard, cicadas can damage trees, particularly young or ornamental trees, as they oviposit their eggs in branches. The damage to individual branches is often permanent, and in some cases the entire plant is lost. Native species of trees, like oak and maples, fare much better against cicadas because they have co-evolved for hundreds of centuries. Young trees and weaker non-native ornamentals, imported from outside the United States, fare a lot worse.
Female cicadas use their ovipositor to carve egg nests (egg grooves, punctures, baby cicada cribs) into the bark of tree branches:
Here is an illustration of the egg nests (baby cicada cribs):
Mature trees will receive some damage, but they recover. When branches are damaged they die and their leaves turn brown, which is called flagging:
Check out these articles on Flagging:
Netting and tree protection tips:
Netting can be effective for keeping cicadas off branches, or on branches, as in the case of this video below where cicada researcher John Cooley had collected many cicadas and wanted to keep them for later. This video is proof that they cannot get through netting:
In my personal experience, which includes two Brood II emergence in my yard, I have seen plenty of flagging, but no death of a tree or shrub. That said, I do not have many small or ornamental trees. I have a 15′ dogwood, azaleas and rhododendrons.
Case study from 2021-2023:
Here’s a small (less than 10 feet) tree that experienced a lot of flagging during Brood X in 2021:
Here is the same tree in May of 2023:
The tree can be found at the Princeton Battlefield Monument park, and if can be seen on Google maps.
If you’re looking for historical information about previous brood emergences try Cicada Central’s Magicicada Database. Click on the link that reads Magicicada Database and then follow the instructions (hint: search for the 13 (XIII) brood and the year 1990).
Spectrum Technologies is monitoring the soil temperature in Plainfield and Naperville Illinois.
In northern Illinois and surrounding areas, three species of Magicicada emerge from the soil every 17 years for a brief above-ground visit. Brood XIII will emerge when soil temperature reaches approximately 65° F. Spectrum data loggers are busy tracking soil temperature near Spectrum headquarters in northern Illinois to estimate when to expect their arrival.