Cicadas 2004

(warning: .pdf file)
(2nd warning: contains information about cooking & eating BUGS)

(we don't have them in the UK, no)

But yeah, they don't look appetizing. I'm not going, mmm, mm, cicadas, finally! or anything like that, but how many foods are only available fresh every dozen-plus years, after all? Not many, that's how many.

Once in awhile I run across something I gotta do so I'll know better when I'm 40.

Them I wouldn't eat.

I actually would love to try 'em, but the harvesting-as-they-pop-out-of-the-ground sounds hard, and I'm lazy.

Exactly my problem. I'll have to find a bug-magnet so quincie can get me some.

(Not Kevin.)

Oops, I realized you're right about the cicadas being in 1990 once I thought about it...I was miscalculating.

-- JuliaA

Possibly the only time I have been right about something, so I figured I'd repost it.

That said, they're sort of like popcorn for dogs. Popcorn sprinkled with CRACK.

As nickalicious said upthread, there are different "broods" of cicadas. Most of them run in 17-year cycles, but not the same 17-year cycle, and not in the same locations. "Brood X," concentrated in Indiana, Kentucky and Ohio, and also found in Michigan, Tennessee, DC-Baltimore, Long Island (but not NYC?), and some other places, last arose in 1987 and is scheduled for 2004. Presumably, whichever brood you encountered in 1990 is a different one.

Well, excellent for the "how'm I gonna eat a cicada?" issue, less great for the "look, bugs everywhere" factor. I'm glad my cats are indoor cats.

Also, apparently some go on a 13-year cycle. I was in the Washington area for the 1987 swarm, and all I remember is the cats going bonkers. Still, I'm not looking forward to this cicada season.

"The sound of just one male vibrating the membranes on the side of its body is as loud as a power lawn mower (90 decibles)."

Holy SHIT it's going to be loud around here!

And for Lee:

"A few months before they pop out of the ground, cicadas use their legs to dig tunnels that take them to the surface. . . the tunnel sometimes ends in something called a cicada hut [CICADA HUT!!!], a half-inch-wide hole near the base of a tree. You can probably see some now."

Tep, you can't eat those british cicadas--they're on the endangered species list.

I thought this was akin to "yeah, and the end of a lit cigarette is really hot if you touch it" but I read that the Brevisana brevis cicada hits 107dB SPL at a distance of 50cm. Jesus Christ.

I asked Pam and she doesn't recall the noise aspect of '87 so much as the utter carpeting of roads and sidewalks. Crunch, crunch, crunch.

What do you get when you cross a sheep with a cicada? Baa humbug!

http://www.woodland.org/floppyg/cicadas/huts.JPG

http://www.woodland.org/floppyg/cicadas/mat.JPG

xpost are any of them molting yet?

I feel a little badly for the fellas under the mat...I mean: you sit under the ground for 17 years, finally dig your way to the surface and...D'OH!

I realized this morning that this is going to play hell with my tennis playing, since we have an outdoor court (filled with cracks through the cement, cause no one uses it but me, and surrounded by bushes and other cicada fast food joints).

They've not yet started squaking, though. Maybe they have low libidos this year?

http://www.woodland.org/floppyg/cicadas/cigarette.jpg

In the past three days, I've been to King's Island (just outside Cincy) and there was cicada action, and then down to Morristown Tennessee where there was mad crazy cicada action, but here in Lex Vegas? NOTHING. I'm a little freaked out by this.

Name Bosko Balaban
Team Aston Villa
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Hate these things SO MUCH. It's not the noise I hate, FTR; it's being unable to take a step without crunching a dozen of them underfoot, or having them fly or fall into your face/hair/body every time you leave your house or pass under a tree, for WEEKS. Plus, they're horrifying to look at, with their thumb-sized black bodies and glowing red eyes. THE FUCKING WORST. Fortunately, according to this US gov't map, my state (NJ) is not getting the 2021 outbreak.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EyIUZlUWgAgYcWl.jpg

In 1987, when I was turning 16, they were everywhere in my neighborhood of older houses. People who lived in subdivisions that were developed in the 70s didn't have them.

When I was a child I had a phobia of all flying insects (related to a beesting allergy), and the cicadas kinda got me over the phobia. These guys looked scary but were really just big and stupid and about to die.

In 2004 I was newly married and living in a demiurban apartment and could hear them but they weren't a problem.

Now I am turning 50 and trying to sell the house my children have grown up in. I'm starting to appreciate how their appearances help demarcate periods in my life.