In the next week or so, if you hear something that sounds like the mother ship of an alien invasion, an insect the length of your thumb is likely to blame. Actually, lots and lots of them.
After 13 years of living underground and sucking on tree roots, the periodical cicada (aka as the Great Southern Brood) has surfaced to mate and lay eggs and die, all in the span of a few weeks. And they’ll be making all kinds of racket in the meantime. (Note: Cicadas only chirp in the daytime, as opposed to crickets and katydids.)
These red-eyed spineless creatures, not to be confused with the green-eyed “dog days cicadas” you hear every summer, have been heard in 50 Georgia counties so far, according to Nancy Hinkle, the University of Georgia entomologist heading up the first statewide survey on periodical cicadas. We talked to Hinkle about how that effort is going. And if you spot — or hear — any periodical cicadas, she wants to hear from you at insects@uga.edu.
Q: Can you finish this sentence? The periodical cicada is so interesting because ...
A: It knows to come out every 13 years. How does it know that?
Q: How do they differ from dog days cicadas?
A: They are somewhat smaller. They have brilliant red eyes and orange veins in their wings.
Q: Can you describe what they sound like?
A: It is chorusing. It is chirping. Some people have some uncharitable ways of describing it.
Q: Are they that much louder than annual cicadas?
A: They are not that much louder individually, it is just that they come out in such huge numbers. When they sing together, the sound can be impressive, almost overwhelming.
Q: How many are there?
A: Bazillions. There are at least tens of millions if not hundreds of millions. There are people who claim they have millions in their own backyards. In my own backyard here in Athens ... I've only had a dozen emerge.
Q: Other than the noise ... are they harmful?
A: Nothing harmful about them at all. They can't bite. They can't sting.
Q: Have they been heard in metro Atlanta?
A: We did get one report from Cobb County. We don't know if they aren't there or if people are just not reporting them. If they aren't there, it may be that we have paved over so much territory. Babies have to live 13 years underground on the same tree. If you cut that tree down, you kill every one of them.
Q: What do they do all that time underground?
A: They have been growing. Finally they get large enough to crawl up through the ground. The skin on their back splits and the adult emerges and flies up to the treetops. The males start singing and the females respond and they get together and mate. Then a female cuts a tiny slit in the tip of a branch and inserts her eggs. In a few days most of the adults will die or get eaten.
Q: What eats them?
A: Just about everything. Raccoons. Opossums. Coyotes. The people who turkey hunt are reporting that turkey are gorging on them.
Q: Is their death dramatic?
A: In general, they just get weak and fall from the tree and flutter around for a while. Usually a predator comes around and scarfs them up. I guess that is dramatic.
Q: You expect them to be gone by Memorial Day?
A: I'm afraid so.
The Sunday conversation is edited for length and clarity. Writer Ann Hardie can be reached by email at ann.hardie@ymail.com.
About the Author
