Cicada Preview

People are getting hopped-up about Brood II of the 17 year cicadas, emerging soon near you here on the East Coast. I can tell, because I’ve gotten a lot of search hits on the subject of cicadas. But most of my cicada posts are about the annual cicadas and their predators. I’ve never seen a periodical cicada.

But here’s a taste:This is a photograph (check it out, kids: silver-coated paper; ask your parents about this technology invented by Cro-Magnon) from a friend who was living in Missouri in 1998, when the stars aligned both a 13-year AND a 17-year brood emergence in the region. (Said friend is still traumatized and asks that his name not be used.)

The shed exoskeletons of the 17-year old nymphs pile up around the tree; the black-bodied, red-eyed adult cicadas, which are smaller than our annual green cicadas, are on the tree.I gather your suburban types are going to be bitching about the mess made by the potentially massive emergence of Brood II — which probably makes great compost — but I can’t help that. The planet doesn’t belong to them, nor any of us.I say, bring on the Seventeeners!