This is a stand alone reprint of an article on 17 year Cicadas in between the 1987 and 2004 emergents.
Y.E.S. QUARTERLY 12(1) JAN/MAR 1995 Copyright 1995
This is a reprint of an article I had published in Young Entomologist Society Journal in 1995. I am sorry I could not get the maps and charts to carry over.
Gary J. Lovell 3818 Watson Toledo OH 43612 May 1987. Toledo, Ohio.
The “Toledo Blade” and the “USA Today” have major articles about a noisy nuisance of an insect, the periodical cicada – also known as the 17-year cicada. I remember reading about it and especially thinking about it in June 1970 at a time when I was too young to pursue them. They are so fascinating, just thinking that they are living and burrowing underground for more years than four U.S. presidential terms; nearly two decades; seventeen seasonal cycles! From 1970 to 1987, ( which time I had forgotten about their scheduled return, technology had changed forever the face of our earth and society. During that same time I have seen a great technological advance from the simple 8mm home movies to complicated video cameras that record crisp, clear sounds (becoming a household item and new tool for the entomologist). I also imagined that many wooded habitats of this underground critter have been disrupted for housing and commercial projects. After all, they had no way to run or fly away till May 1987 (or 2004). I found a lot of information in the library and the Ohio Cooperative Extension Service at Ohio State University on these long-lived insects. They emerge from their long nymphal stage in May (the 18th day of the month in 1987), unlike our local annual cicadas which come out in July through September. Their season lasts about six weeks. They sing well into the nighttime hours. — They eventually attract mates and lay eggs in slits in twigs. These eggs hatch in a month or so, and the emerging nymphs drop to the ground and burrow down in the ground and suck the juices out of plant roots. And the cycle starts anew. I understand that this phenomenon was especially astonishing to the early North American settlers. Since many arrived here to escape religious persecution, their minds and experiences caused them to compare the huge cicada swarms to the locust plagues of the Bible. Hence the common moniker “locust”. Later it was discovered that these insects were a species altogether different from the grasshoppers, but the name stuck. In the beginning there was supposedly a periodical cicada brood every year. How anyone could have figured out that the cicadas had annual cycles instead of seventeen year cycles still remains a mystery to me. Over the years entomologists noticed that certain areas of the countries had cicada swarms in unique years. These different broods have been mapped out and each is identified with a Roman numeral. One source says several of the broods have disappeared, which leaves about 12 left. Brood X (10) is the largest and most common. In 1987 brood XXI of the 13-year cicada, a similar southern species, also emerged. There is a lot of confusion among scientists over these two species. One aspect I have found that makes the periodical cicada all the more interesting is that many cicada emergence years coincide with important events in American history and/or your own life. For instance, I was born in 1955, the year brood XII (17 year) and XVIII (13 year) appeared. A friend used his computer to list all the dates Brood X emerged back to 87 B.C., although since the 17 year cicada is a wholly North American phenomenon few people witnessed it prior to European colonization. The 20th century dates prior to 1970 are 1953, 1936, 1919, and 1902. Maybe you were born or married during one of these years. In 1749 the cicadas were first identified and described. In 1868 the U.S. government signed a treaty with the Sioux Indians. Haley’s Comet and the cicadas both appeared in 1222 A.D. I read a book called “Near Horizons” by Edwin Way Teale and he mentions observing the periodical cicadas one year in his insect garden. Since the book was copyrighted in 1942 I would suppose he was writing the book a few years prior to this date. According to the map he could have been seeing broods that emerged in either 1936 or 1940 in the Long Island area of New York. Of course the future hasn’t arrived yet, but it will be interesting to see how the cicadas fair in the next century. The 1987 emergence of Brood X made some new ground according to the Extension Service. Their map shows shows them near central and southern Ohio, but a newspaper article reported they were found near Ayersville in Defiance Co. The Extension Service verified this and I went to see and hear the cicadas. Their map gave no indication that the cicadas ever existed in northwestern Ohio. A week or so earlier I gathered up my video and audio equipment and headed south on Interstate 75. I had no idea where or how far south to go (I had not received the Extension Service’s map yet) or what to look for. I half expected to drive through clouds of them. It was June 7th, and I had traveled about 2 and one half hours south when I decided to turn around and go home. Disappointed and dejected I returned on Route 68 about 20 miles to the east. I didn’t even know that I was close to cicada country. A few miles north of Bellefountaine, Ohio, at 55 MPH with the car windows open I heard them singing in the woods over a hundred yards away. I pulled over and took video pictures till the battery died. I also filled tapes with sound and narration. I observed cicada “skins” hanging nearly everywhere, 3 or four to a branch. Adults were everywhere, sitting and droning on. The sound pulsed ever so steadily up and down. Driving a few miles further I found a wooded area with a manicured lawn (like a picnic area) that had even more cicadas (and was even louder). This place had shed “skins” 10-15 per branch and cicadas on trunks and twigs, flying about, and walking under foot. It was just incredible. I went back about two weeks later and the difference was like night and day. Most of the cicadas were dead or dying. There was only sporadic and forlorn buzzing from cicadas on their death beds. Ants picked at the remains. Birds were eating the helpless and weakened individuals. The end was near at hand. I haven’t thought about the cicadas lately, that is until I drove down Route 68 while returning home from a business trip. I saw the areas I had visited seven and one half years earlier. Thoughts returned to those glorious days. Right now little periodical cicada nymphs are living and eating, awaiting their time for emergence in the year 2004 A.D.
Copyright 1995
Gary J. Lovell
Unusual Perspectives 