| Post Info | TOPIC: Buggin' Out in WI | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Cleverly Disguised As A Responsible Adult
|
"They don't eat anything, but it does have that feel of Moses and the plagues of Egypt," said Phil Pellitteri, an entomologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, on the sheer number of cicadas that emerge every 17 years at the end of their unusual synchronized life cycle. Population densities as high as 1.5 million an acre have been recorded in the cicadas' favored wooded habitats, but numbers in the tens to hundreds of thousands an acre are more common. Cicadas exist in a number of varieties, and Wisconsin has a widespread one, known as the dog-day cicada, that emerges every year in July and August to mate and lay eggs before dying. But the 17-year periodical cicadas that will emerge in late May or mid-June are called Brood XIII cicadas and have a natural habitat that extends through northern Illinois, eastern Iowa, along Lake Michigan in Indiana and into far southeastern Wisconsin. Brood XIII cicadas in Wisconsin are found in Racine, Kenosha and Walworth counties, Pellitteri said. Studies of the insects show they stick to a fairly well-defined range based on where they have lived and died historically. The cicada nymphs emerge from underground borrows, molt and grow into their new exoskeletons before taking to the trees, where the males start singing to attract females. The females lay eggs in twigs; each female can lay as many 600 eggs. In six to eight weeks the adults are dead, often leaving piles of their exoskeletons in and under trees. In six to 10 weeks, the eggs hatch, the nymphs drop from the trees, burrow underground, find a small tree root to feed on and begin their 17 years of life underground. This year's newly hatched cicada nymphs will emerge in 2024. Pellitteri said cicadas don't bite, don't damage anything, don't cling to people, stick mostly to trees and are non-toxic to the point that some people eat them. Still, he said, many find the huge number of the insects reminiscent of a horror movie. "Depending on your point of view, it's either lots of fun or a terror," Pellitteri said of the mass emergence of the insects last seen in 1990. "People squeamish about insects may not want to go outside when they're active. If you're in the right spot, it will be impossible not to encounter them." But there are people who will go out of their way to encounter the cicada spectacle Karl Legler, an amateur entomologist from Sauk City, is leading a field trip sponsored by the Madison Audubon Society and the Southern Wisconsin Butterfly Association to the Lake Geneva area, where insect experts expect a large number of cicadas to emerge. Pellitteri said he's heading there, too. Recording their songLegler records cicada songs, which vary according to the type of cicada, and has used his recordings in presentations. "I have recorded the songs of most of our cicadas," he said. "They sing from the trees essentially, and I have a shotgun microphone that I hold up to them." Richard Folman, 74, of Lake Geneva has seen many emergences of the 17-year cicada in that area and said it is a sight and sound to behold. "When they're out there, it's really noisy," he said. "Then they shed their shells, and there'll be big bundles of them hanging in the trees. You've got to see it to believe it."
-- Heather: "I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it!"
|
||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||
Cicadas
