~ Jessica S. Herwick
I forgot they were coming. 17 years ago, small eggs hatched along tree branches, and tiny larva dropped to the ground, burying themselves deep within the roots and earth to grow in preparation for their 2013 debut. The scheduled emergence of Magicicada broods along the East Coast did not come to mind until mid-May, when I found this little guy sitting on the windshield of my car in the parking lot of a New Jersey hotel the day my cousin got married. I was so excited to have seen one, an actual magicicada, or any cicada for that matter. I didn’t consider what hundreds of them might look like, or sound like. But I was about to find out just a few weeks later.
At the end of the month, while visiting family in
Fredericksburg, Virginia over the Memorial Day weekend, the Spotsylvania County
area was completely over run with
these fascinating, and unusually friendly insects. When I first crossed the county line, I heard them
singing. The sound was so loud and
so foreign to my ears, I dismissed it as a fire alarm in the distance. Then, one at a time, these husky
insects began charging at my windshield, and I could feel them under the wheels
of my tires, crunching under the pressure – poor things! Their sounds from the wooded areas grew
louder as I approached the tree-lined development, and by the time I pulled in
and parked along my parents shady driveway, my car was practically
covered. One even dropped onto my
shoulder.
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| Holes from the Magicicada emergence. |
I returned to Philadelphia with maps of the last brood’s sightings, and expected emergence areas. I waited. I looked. I listened. I visited Fairmont Park and walked the Wissahickon trails, but I never saw (or heard) anything close to the giant brood that hatched in Spotsylvania County.
All the Etymologists say that if you
haven’t seen a magicicada by July, then you’ll most likely have to wait for
another 17 years. As I write to
you now, I have still only heard faint calls of Magicicadas through the trees
in the denser wooded areas of Philly, but the real show this year remains for me
the Virginia brood. So, for my
friends in Philadelphia who may not have had the opportunity to see the
Magicicadas in all their glory, I am posting video and digital images of those
that I encountered. In the video below, you can hear them in full force!
ABOUT CICADAS
Cicadas are fascinating creatures. Everything about their life cycle and habits is unusual and intriguing.
I could write a dozen
blogs filled with fun facts about cicadas. For this piece, I’ll try to stick with the science, but I
encourage you to check out the websites below to learn more.
There are six species of periodical cicadas, three with a
17-year cycle and three with a 13-year cycle. The three species in each
life-cycle group are distinctive in size, color, and song. The 17-year cicadas
are generally northern, and the 13-year cicadas southern with considerable
overlap in their distribution. It is possible for both types to occur in the
same forest.
For the purpose of tracking and scientific study, each brood
is designated by a Roman numeral. I
through XVII are assigned to the 17-year broods. XVIII and higher are assigned to the 13-year broods. You may wonder what happens when the 17
year old broods reach the roman numeral XVII, being their end number. The brood the following year starts
again at Roman numeral I. The
numbering of the 17-year broods began in 1893, when the brood that year was
designated as Brood I. In 1909, Brood XVII appeared, and in 1910, Brood I
appeared again.
Interesting to our
state!
In Pennsylvania there are Cicada broods being tracked during
eight different years in different areas across the state. All of the Pennsylvania broods require
17 years to reach maturity. Several of these broods are very small. There is
very large brood known as the
"great eastern brood”.
I will begin to look out for them!
Maybe I will have more luck here in Philly in a few more years.
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| Magicicada - Remnants of Molting Phase |
Magicicada Website
For a vast array of information about Cicadas – Including
other species of Cicada and additional info on Magicicada brood. Cool mapping projects here!
Penn State Entomology Periodical Cicada Fact Sheet
Including a Timetable of expected appearances of the
periodical cicada in Pennsylvania
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