S I kept reading all these articles the last few months about "The Summer of the Cicadas." They are these bugs that apparently live underground for 17 years or so only to emerge for a summer to hang out, make lots of noise and get their freak on.
Now the impression I got from all the hype was that I would be stepping over large piles walking to my car everynight and I would be driven mad by the deafening sound of their mating call.
AOL has icons for the cicadas and David Letterman even did a top ten about the lovable bugs last week. All hyped up!
Now am I the only one who hasn't seen one damn Cicada yet in the summer of cicadas? Okay sure summer doesn't officially start till noon today(Monday), but they say once the ground hits 65 degrees they should start crawling out and having their party. I fairly sure it is warm enough for them to imerge.
Well its warm enough and where are the damn bugs? I don't see them, hear them, or no anyone really that has seen them. I did a google search and found some charts that don't have them here till 2013, apparently they were here in the mid-90s.
I also got to see some really good pictures of the, and I know that I have seen them in my back yard before. They climb out of their old body and fly away. I have seen their exo-skeleton attached to my screen in porch.
I guess the difference this year is there is supposed to be tons more and they mate so it gets really loud at night. Supposedly they sound like a UFO when they all start their matting call at once. Whatever that means.
I know I likely have some of my facts wrong here. Has anyone seen these creatures? Is it going to be even more noticeable this summer or is it just typical media over-hype?
Is sitting outside this summer in a lawn chair wearing a summer of the cicadas shirt a waste of my time? Is it too late to cancel the order and get my money back before the shirt ships? Does anyone want to have a cicada party this summer?
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6 comments:
There have always been cicadas all over the place, it just so happens that a certain species of cicada, I beleive Cicada X, lives underground in stasis for 17 years at a time and when their 17 years are up they come to the surface and mate, give birth die and a new generation goes underground for 17 more years. You have not seen any because apparently there are not any in this area, you probably would have seen them already, but you probably have seen some species of cicada just not the ones that are in the news. There was a golf tournament a couple of weeks ago that was damn near ruined because of cicadas, they were buzzing past the golfers and landing on them and getting in the way of their swing, they almost called the tournament off. But anyway, we lucked out from being swarmed by these relatively harmless insects.
J
I've seen them!! While playing ultimate frisbee one evening, I heard the loud sounds of large bugs with large wings. When I went over to see the source i saw at least a half dozen of these buggers all crawly along the ground, one even had the temerity to land on my car. Well its not like they are some freak storm that comes every hundred years, they are a summer tradition of sleepless, muggy nights. It just so happens that 1987 was very hospitable to cicadas and we are now seein this bumper crop. I'm sure next years crop, a very fine 1988 vintage will be large too. Learn to live with your fellow huge ass bugs who never shut the hell up at night.
Tom T
What about Cicadas who burried themselves under ground in say. Voorhees. 17 years ago most of the area surronding White Horse Road was farm, so they might have thought it was a great place to sit underground for almost two decades.
Now this spring did they get all freaked out upon trying to exist their underground bunkers?
That is the price they will have to pay for staying underground so long. Did you ever see that awful movie Blast From the Past, it was like culture shock but it is their own damn fault.
Lets just say one was to scope a bunch of the little fellows up and put them in a glass car filled with soil.Would they burry themselves in that small amount of soil to just sit there in a comma till 2013?
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