In August of 1999, something special happened.
The world was on the precipice of the turning of the millennium, Toy Story 2 was only months from arriving in theaters, Bill Clinton was enjoying his final year of U.S. presidency, and all over Ohio newly hatched Brood V cicadas were dropping from trees to almost instantaneously drive themselves underground.
This was the beginning of a 17-year process in which the insects would continue to slowly burrow for years, occasionally molting and crafting larger tunnels, but never traveling more than 3 feet or so from where they landed over a decade and a half ago.
Dr. Gene Kritsky, a professor and chair of the biology department of Mount St. Joseph University in Cincinnati, as well as the editor of American Entomologist, said that cicada broods are comparable to graduating classes.
Kritsky has extensively studied cicadas in general and performed comprehensive Ohio mapping for the current Brood V back when their parents emerged in 1999. He said that in 1999, West Salem, Millersburg and Shreve especially experienced emergences of the insects.
Kritsky said that Ohioans can expect cicadas to start to emerge mid-May, although recent milder winters may scoot that date up a bit.
Traditionally they emerge after May 15, he said, adding that the insects will come from their underground tunnels once the soil reaches a temperature of 65 degrees Fahrenheit.
We mostly see the adult stage of the cicada during a cicada year, Kritsky said. They actually spend 17 years underground as immature insects, feeding on xylem roots before they emerge as a cicada immature that will shed its last nymphal skin as it develops into the adult cicada.
Kritsky said that there are three species of 17-year cicadas that will emerge this year, those species being Magicicada septendecim, Magicicada cassini and Magicicada septendecula.
When the cicadas decide to emerge, they certainly emerge en masse, and Kritsky said that a large portion of the insects survival strategy is literally overwhelming their predators.
Its a little like if you walked outside one day and there were flying Hersheys kisses everywhere, Kritsky said. At first youd be eating them like crazy, but after a while youd get sick of them.
Such is the case with the cicada, which spends the early weeks of its emergence singing and mating. Only male cicadas sing, and they do so to get the attention of a female counterpart. When they sing, an interested female will flick her wings, which serves as a signal for the male cicada to come closer, and, eventually, mate.
After mating, the female lays some 500 eggs and both parties expire within about a week of their intimacy.
We often see the little brown shells that they leave after their final maturation stage, and when an adult cicada dies, it smells a little like a bad Limburger cheese, Kritsky said.
In 1987, Kritsky was contacted by an elderly woman who remembered spotting a Brood X cicadas shell back in 1936. Unfortunately, she spotted it on the bridge of her brothers nose, and she proceeded to hit his face with a baseball bat to get what she presumably thought was a harmful insect off of her brothers face, in turn breaking his nose. When the cicadas returned in 1953, the woman had a daughter of her own to whom she told the story, and by 1970, the daughter had her own children to whom to relate the tale. By 1987, there were four generations of that womans family who had heard the hilarious tale of how great-grandma had a bit of a swing and a miss at a cicada.
Theyre really like little time capsules, Kritsky said.
More information about cicadas can be found on Kritskys website, www.msj.edu/cicada. The website also has many teaching resources related to cicadas, including how to make an origami cicada and cicada coloring pages.
