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Brood X Due to Hatch This Year
Not a sign of the coming Apocalypse I hope.
http://www.courier-journal.com/localnews/2004/01/12in/met-front-cicada0112-4463.html
Not a sign of the coming Apocalypse I hope.
After 17 years, millions of cicadas will swarm this spring
Associated Press
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — This year's spring should sound different from any other in nearly a generation because scientists are expecting millions of cicadas to emerge from 17 years underground.
When they appear in late May, the 17-year cicadas known as Brood X will transform the environment, filling the air with their winged bodies and the days with sound.
"This is likely to be the biggest insect outbreak on Earth, and Bloomington is right in the center of it," said Keith Clay, an Indiana University biology professor and director of the IU Research and Teaching Preserve. "They're going to come out around May 25, plus or minus a few days. You can almost set your watch by it."
The insects are known as periodical cicadas and are distinct from the cicadas — commonly called locusts — that emerge every year.
Periodical cicadas live only in the eastern United States, with different broods emerging every year at different locations. Each brood is labeled with a Roman numeral.
The Brood X cicadas spend the last seven or eight years of their underground lives between 4 and 8 inches below the surface, using their piercing mouths to suck on roots.
When they dig out, they are wingless nymphs. They then crawl onto a tree and break out of their hard shells, after which their wings quickly dry and their bodies darken.
"Basically, the only thing the adults do is mate," Clay said. "And then the females lay eggs. Then they die."
The adults live only about three weeks, and the infestation will be finished about a month after it begins. They will leave behind eggs that will hatch into larvae. The larvae will emerge and become adult cicadas in 2021.
Clay said it's been documented that cicadas can emerge at densities as high as 1.5 million per acre. "A quarter-acre suburban lot could produce 500 pounds of cicadas," he said.
The sudden appearance and die-off lead to a feeding frenzy for other animals.
"Basically everything starts chowing down. Birds, cats, dogs, fish, rodents will stop what they're doing and eat cicadas," Clay said. "There's an old-boy tale that fishing's no good when they're out — the fish are stuffed."
The IU research preserve and Jim Speer, a geography professor at Indiana State University, will be using a 0,000 National Science Foundation grant to study the cicadas. They will be charting the size and locations of the infestation and studying the relationship between the cicadas and the environment, particularly the forest ecosystem.
Part of the work will involve covering patches of vegetation with large nets to keep the insects from laying eggs, allowing scientists to compare what happens in nearby areas with and without cicadas.
"It's of interest because a biological event of this magnitude emphasizes that humans are not above nature but are part of it," he said.
http://www.courier-journal.com/localnews/2004/01/12in/met-front-cicada0112-4463.html