When I heard a large amount of cicadas, Brood X, were reemerging this year after 17 years, I was disappointed and then incensed. Here I was, with one dose of the Pfizer vaccine in my arm and plans to go camping with my similarly COVID-safe friends after a year of relative isolation, and some bug-eyed arthropods were going to ruin that for me? My mind flashed to 2004, a summer when I was scared to leave my house. I was 9 and used to spending my time off school at the pool or reading outside. Instead, I watched from a window as my brothers waged war with the insurgent buggers.
I expect many of us are feeling similarly: So, Im finally allowed to leave my house, and this is going to happen? Another plague of a different kind? Logically, I know there must be some scientific benefit to having the cicadas return. So, I turned to someone who I thought could make me feel better: Jonathan Larson, or @bugmanjon on Twitter, a UK extension entomologist who also co-hosts a podcast: Arthro-Pod. Here I ask him my cicada questions, including the most important one: What did we do to deserve this?
LEO: So the reason Im not too psyched about these cicadas is that, its just this past year has been really tough for humanity, I think, with COVID confining us to our homes. And just as science has gifted us these wonderful vaccines that are going to allow us to reenter society, I receive news that theres a large group of cicadas that are going to be emerging this year. So my first question is, is nature revolting against us? Jonathan Larson: I dont think so. I think that this is more of a sign of the beauty of life, like this is another huge piece of nature thats going to get to come out and experience their own sort of emergence, just like we are coming out of this coronavirus pandemic. Theyve been underground for 17 years, so theyve had it a little longer than we have. I think its one of those beautiful, weird things that happens in nature. So, its just a sign of the fact that things are continuing, things are living and things are thriving.
Okay, so, if not a planned attack by the cicadas, or like the earth turning against us for the sins weve committed against it, why are they coming back this year?
Thats an excellent question. So this brood thats coming out is called Brood X, and Brood X is made up of three species of 17 year cicadas. And that means that 17 years ago in 2004, the eggs were laid, their eggs hatched, they burrowed into the soil, theyve been living down there below ground And as a species, they have a time of emergence where they come out, 17 years after they go into the soil. So its just everything is going according to plan for them.
So because its three different species, its going to be larger than normal? A larger emergence of cicadas than in other years? Is that correct?
These are different species than the annual cicadas that we see every summer. So annual cicadas come out every summer in the middle and latter half of the summer. Those species tend to be larger; they tend to be sort of a green and brown and black mixture. And like I said, they come out later in the year. Brood X and the 17 year cicadas, theyre actually smaller than the annual cicadas. Theyre all black; they have red eyes; and they have orange stripes on their wings. They look quite a bit different. And they emerge much earlier in the season compared to their cousins, the annual cicadas.
Im gonna be honest, the way youre describing them not enthusing me too much. But, what have they been doing in their underground lairs this entire time?
In their underground lairs they have been siphoning out tree sap from the roofs of their host trees. So they kind of feed on, especially maple syrup, all the live long day. They dont have a very nutritious diet. Its sort of like if we drink Dr. Pepper and Mountain Dew, and that was it every day in our life, we would probably take a long time to develop as well. So thats what theyve been doing, is theyve just been sort of slowly feeding and developing, and then counting the cycle of the sap. So as the year progresses, the tree will have less sap at the lower part, and they can count that cycle, and thats how they get to 17 and know that its time to emerge.
So Ive watched a lot of science fiction movies, and I feel like there is a message that you shouldnt mess with nature. But hypothetically, is there a way to keep these cicadas from reemerging? Like, could we cover our yards in like the plastic wrap that old ladies put on their couches or something like that?
Could we Tupperware the whole world sort of?
Yeah.
Unfortunately, weve kind of done that already, you know? When we talk about humanity and our interactions with the planet, we do a lot of urbanization. Were in the Anthropocene, right this whole idea that we are the ones dictating what happens. And weve taken away a lot of habitat from these already so they already emerged in fewer places than they used to seemingly. Weve moved into their world rather than the other way around.
And what kind of effect does that have on the ecosystem, limiting their spread?
Its an interesting question. Its something that we ponder a lot in entomology: What is happening with these cicadas and their interactions with the rest of the wild world? Its hard to say because they only appear every 17 years so they dont have a huge presence every year, so theres not a lot of things that depend on the cicadas. One of the reasons that we think that they do the 17 year thing, is that it helps to make sure nothing specializes on them. We dont have something that only eats periodical cicadas or only lays its eggs in periodical cicadas just because thats too long of a period for most predators and parasitoids to wait. So thats an interesting thing about their biology. But if we have fewer of them, we also see that things have less of them to eat, and theres a lot of things that like eating these cicadas: snakes, raccoons, squirrels, opossums, birds, turkeys, you name it. Anything with a mouth and the digestive tract basically likes to eat these. And so its a big huge protein surge that they get every 17 years, and it can help their populations. So they do have a role to play. Theyre sort of a big nutritious snack that lots of things enjoy. I cant go any more philosophically than that about what it is they do for the world, but they are a nutritious handy-dandy snack for some things.
Is it true that the Louisville area may get the cicadas worse than other areas? I think I read that. I mean were already a place with one of the worst allergy seasons, like what other unholy conditions have led to this possibility if thats true?
So, Louisville is on the Ohio River. We see these insects associated very commonly with river corridors because theres a lot of trees along river corridors, and so they like those long-limbed tree species that get in those spots. So yes, Louisville is one of the spots we expect to see quite a few cicadas come out. In 2004, there were 16 counties thereabout that reported large cicada emergences for Brood X. In Kentucky, Jefferson County was one of them. If you look at the map of it, theyre all really kind of along the Ohio River and then sort of tailing down from other smaller river corridors from those counties.
So, am I overreacting? How much should I actually expect these bugs to interrupt my vaxxed girl summer, or my pets, or my plants?
Its not an overreaction. I mean everyone is allowed to feel the way they want to feel about bugs. Thats one of the things about humanity. So I wont say that youre overreacting, but theyre not going to do anything directly to you. They dont bite people. They dont sting people. They do attack some of our trees. The larger, more mature trees that have been in the landscape for some time, those trees we dont really have to worry about. They like oaks and maples and a lot of fruit trees. They stay away from our evergreens and a few other species, but they do have about 80 different hosts that theyll lay their eggs in, but theyll avoid things like perennial flowers and annual plants, and they avoid a lot of our ag-crops, So, its not that theyre going to be a plague that confounds farmers and everything like that. The biggest issue I would say is the noise. So, male cicadas do sing in order to attract females, and then they sing a courtship song to her in order to mate. And if they are singing together which is one of their behaviors in their species is this chorus where the males will all sing in a tree to try and bring females to that tree it gets over 100 decibels. And that is the thing that most people complain about is just that its so loud. It doesnt stop until theyve mated and died. So thats really what really kind of confounds most people is just the noise level that they have to contend with.
So, when can we expect these creatures? Like, are there any warning signs, or will I just wake up one day with one crawling on my face?
They wont be in your house, luckily. You will go to bed one night and then the next day it will start. Youll start to hear them, youll start to see the shells on the trees. Theyre usually emerging in a nocturnal pattern. A warning sign is actually the blooming of irises. So what we see is that irises tend to bloom at the same time that the soil, eight inches deep, has reached 64 degrees Fahrenheit, which is the temperature they need to know its time to emerge. So we have had these weird fluctuations in weather. Recently, we just had snow on the ground here in Lexington I dont know about over there. So I think that were on track for probably the early part of May, like the beginning of May. Sometimes it happens at the end of April, but based on these weird cold snaps that weve had, I would guess, the beginning of May.
OK, and then how long will they torture us for?
Six to eight weeks is how long theyll be around. They have this staged emergence pattern so the early ones that come out are the ones that get eaten a bunch, and then everything gets sick of eating cicadas. And the ones that come out in late May, early June, theyre the ones that tend to get to mate and have successful broods that they put in the soil.
And is there anything else you could say to make me feel better about Brood X descending upon the land?
I would say that this is a uniquely American experience. You dont get to see this anywhere else in the world. Some people travel to this country in different years when theres not a pandemic just to see this weird bug Mardi Gras, where all of these teenage insects sing their song and have sex in trees. Its a wild and wacky time, and its beautiful, its kind of unique and almost poetic. They come out, they sing this big musical number, and they, its a celebration of life, and then they die. So I think its unique and weird. Thats one thing to say about it. I do know that it bothers some folks, but think about all the good it will do for some of the animals, and that it wont last forever. It wont happen for another 17 years and maybe by then youll live in Wyoming or something where it doesnt occur.
Thank you. That is reassuring. The only way to escape is to move. So, will you be happy at least. Will you be excited about these?
I am super excited. So cicadas are one of my favorites insects. I love the annual cicadas, by and large, but the periodical ones theyre I guess theres something I associate with kind of the beginning of my interest in entomology. When I was in high school, the emergences [were] happening in 2004 in Indiana, where Im from. And it was just amazing. It was something that was quite enthralling. And it was this power of entomology, this power of insects the fact that they are able to do something so weird and wild like this it was one of those things that kind of brought me into the fold. So, I am excited. I know that Im one of the few people that gets excited about billions of bugs boiling up out of the ground. But, its weird. I hope that some people will at least go out to places like Big Bone Lick and a few others, where were expecting heavy emergences, and take a listen, take some pictures. And if they do that, they can upload their data to an app called Cicada Safari, which will help us to map the population in Kentucky and better understand where these insects still thrive in the state.
Thats good. When I am sitting at the pool in a beekeepers suit, I will think of you, and Ill say, At least Jonathan is happy right now.