Cicada Mania

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

August 1, 2005

Have you seen an unusually large number of cicadas this year?

Filed under: Chris Simon | Community Science | Okanagana | Proto-periodical — Dan @ 7:32 pm

Cicada.

Chris Simon a Professor, Ecology & Evolutionary Biology from the University of Connecticut asked us to post this on our site, and so we did.

Dear Cicadamaniacs,

If you have seen unusually large numbers of cicadas this year (or
last),and have not seen such numbers for a long time, can you please
report them to me? Chris dot Simon at UCONN dot edu? Please report
the location in which you saw the cicada, what month and year, how
long it has been since you have seen a similar emergence magnitude.

This seems to be an unusually good cicada year, maybe related to
unusually wet or otherwise favorable weather:

Dan Johnson from Southern Alberta, Canada reported an outbreak of
Okanagana synodica this year. He says: “I saw only a few between
1983 and 1985, then a few per year in 1986-88, then rare again, then
slightly more in 2000-2003, and only last year did they bloom, and
really with a bang (more than 1000X). My study area is southern
Alberta and Saskatchewan, mainly mixed grass sites in Alberta, plus
fescue foothills.” He had not seen an emergence like this in the 20
years he had worked there.

John Cooley reports Okanagana rimosa and canadensis as being very
dense this year in Northern Michigan and Dan Vanderpool reported that
an unidentified species of cicada was out in Northern Idaho that
residents noted they had never heard before (at least not in big
numbers) and one respondent had lived there for 30 years.

This record was from last year: Eric Toolson of New Mexico writes-
Last year, there was a widespread & heavy emergence of Tibicen
townsendii across a rather large area of central New Mexico
grassland. Prior to that, I knew of only one population in an area
of several hundred square miles, and that occupied an area of only
about 2 hectares. That population has been emerging in good numbers
for over a decade [in this location], but I never saw the species
anywhere else within a distance of several tens of miles in any
direction. I had formed the impression that although T. townsendii
was geographically widespread, its range was occupied by a relatively
few, widely-scattered, discrete populations that were failing to
occupy what seems to be a lot of contiguous suitable habitat.

Cicadas are known for their boom and bust years. It would be nice to
start keeping track of them.

Thanks very much,

Chris

July 27, 2005

Do cicadas sing at night?

Filed under: Anatomy | Sounds — Dan @ 10:15 pm

A few people have asked me if cicadas sing at night. The truth is, in most cases, they do not. Most of the time when you hear an insect at night it is a cricket or katydid. However, there are a few cases when cicadas will sing at night:

  • In the presence of artificial light sources, like streetlights & floodlights, or a full moon. I turned on a flood light tonight to test this and it worked: a cicada started to sing.
  • When it’s extraordinarily hot.
  • If the cicada is disturbed or attacked.
  • If they’re overcrowded

Thanks to John Cooley for most of this information.

Emergence of Prime Numbers as the Result of Evolutionary Strategy

Filed under: Magicicada | Periodical — Dan @ 4:12 am

Professor Douglas Galvao of the State University of Campinas has written a paper titled Emergence of Prime Numbers as the Result of Evolutionary Strategy. He is hoping to get feedback from the scientific / cicada community.

We investigate by means of a simple theoretical model the emergence of prime numbers as life cycles, as those seen for some species of cicadas.

You can download a PDF version of the paper. Windows users will need Adobe Acrobat Reader to view it, and Mac users can simply use Preview.

You can contact Prof. Douglas Galvao, as well:

Prof. D.S. Galvao
Head of Applied Physics Department
State University of Campinas
Campinas – Sao Paulo – BRAZIL

Tibicen fungi blues

Filed under: Anatomy | Massospora | Matt Berger | Neotibicen — Dan @ 3:44 am

Tibicen fungi.

Here’s a nice photo of a Neotibicen cicada infected with Massospora fungi. Yuck! Thanks to Matt for the photo.

Cicada Pie Recipe

Filed under: Eating Cicadas — Dan @ 3:32 am

These sort of things disgust me, but I’m posting it anyway.

Four cups of chopped rhubarb, 1 cup of fresh cicadas, washed and any hard parts removed; 1&1/3 cups white sugar, 6 tablespoons all-purpose flour, 1tablespoon butter, and a 9-inch double crust pie crust.

You’ll find the rest of the recipe in this article from the Arizona Republic: Answering bug query is easy as pie.

July 16, 2005

Summer Time cicadas

Filed under: Neotibicen | Roy Troutman — Dan @ 9:50 am

Cicada photo by Roy Troutman

More Tibicen photos from Roy Troutman.

July 8, 2005

Straggler pictures from Matt

Filed under: Magicicada | Matt Berger | Periodical Stragglers — Dan @ 11:20 pm

Matt Berger ent us some straggler pictures taken earlier this year:

Matt 2005 Straggler.

Matt 2005 Straggler.

June 27, 2005

Jake is Cicada Maniac

Filed under: Eating Cicadas | Magicicada — Dan @ 5:13 am

From this article in the Shippensberg Sentinel:

Jake Crider takes a bite of a chocolate-covered cicadas. He has kept a container of pre-cooked, frozen periodical cicadas that he harvested last year.

June 10, 2005

$50 Reward for Cicadas

Filed under: Brood XI | John Cooley | Magicicada | Periodical Stragglers — Dan @ 10:07 am

Hey folks, I just got this message from John Cooley, a cicada researcher:

Have I got a deal for you……..see the attached. We’re hoping to
mobilize the cicada fan club to see whether our local brood really
has gone extinct (I think it has- no sightings at last known patch in
1971, 1988, or 2005).

There’s more info about this on Cicada Central— I’ll also consider
some sort of a reward for significant collections of live M.
septendecim stragglers from the eastern part of Brood X, and I’ll
grant the full reward for XI specimens in the CT river valley of MA
and CT, as well as anywhere in RI.

— John Cooley
home page: http://hydrodictyon.eeb.uconn.edu/people/jcooley/

So, if you find a Magicicada in those areas, and have proof, please contact John.

Cooley Reward.

June 6, 2005

Brood X Straggling in Hedgesville WV

Filed under: Gerry Bunker | Magicicada | Periodical Stragglers — Dan @ 7:33 pm

Gerry's Cicada. Gerry's Cicada.

Gerry Bunker sent us these pictures of a straggler from Hedgesville, WV, which he found on June 1st.

Visit Gerry’s excellent cicada web sites for more information:

Massachusetts Cicadas.

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