Back Yard Science: 17 Year Cicadas

If you happen to be blessedly unfamiliar with the 17 year cicadas, let me enlighten you. They are a species of cicada (yes, those big googly-eyed bugs that make that only exist in order to make that annoying sound so you know it’s hot all summer long) that has evolved to emerge from the ground in force on a 17 year cycle. Unfortunately for us, that doesn’t mean they only come once every 17 years. Each brood comes every seventeen years, but there are overlapping swarms of these things.

Since I live in/near the swarm area (opinions differ as to its exact boundaries) this year, cicadas- and by that I mean LOTS of cicadas- are about to become an inescapable fact of life. Never one to waste an opportunity to turn our every day lives into learning experiences, I’ve been busily grossing myself out by reading up on these buggers for weeks. Including engaging Medium Size Mister in a little project where we measured our ground temperature and found out it’s quite warm enough for the cicadas. This is a tidbit of information that’s largely meaningless to him NOW. Just wait. Soon it will loom as large in his memory as the time when I was a kid and we got so much snow I couldn’t see over the top of it does for me.

Measuring the soil temperature to track cicada emergence — Inserting the Thermometer

First of all, you can track the swarm’s emergence at the Cicada Tracker Website. Combining that with the less scientific but sometimes more informative source I like to call “My Facebook Feed,” I can say with certainty that THEY ARE HERE. I haven’t encountered a single one in person yet, but they have started to come out. And they are just as disgusting as I remember them.

These totally harmless (to humans) critters are about to cover every available inch with their bodies and then their carcasses. So you might as well start boning up on your Cicada Facts. While you’re at it, familiarize yourself with the Cicada Killer Wasp. I’ll admit that I’m rooting for the wasp.