Cicadas

[7/4]

how you can look at that cover and still have that question is beyond me.

pass the ketchup, please!

Buffalo Wing Sauce for me.

[Big Al]

They're good for entertainment value. Since their lifespan is usually about 14 hours, it's not too rare to see one flying by, stop dead in the air, and just drop. Just a simple bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz <plop> and that's it.

Watching them fly is like watching an airborne conniption fit. Maybe it's because they can't control those big wings?

And yeah, those killer wasps are something else, but they're harmless. Of course, try and tell that to a nine-year-old and they won't believe you. I did see one take down a cicada (around here, we call 'em locusts) in midair and drag him to his hole in the ground. That was pretty frightening!

Edited August 18, 2006 by Big Al

[Neal Pomea]

I think we are talking about different species.

This, from Encyclopedia Britannica:

"About 1,500 species of cicadas are known; most are tropical and occur in deserts, grasslands, and forests. In addition to the dog-day cicada (Tibicen and others) that appears yearly in midsummer, there are also periodic cicadas. Among the most fascinating and best-known are the 17-year cicada (often erroneously called the 17-year locust) and the 13-year cicada (Magicicada). These species occur in large numbers in chronologically and geographically isolated broods."

Apparently in 2004 we had the Brood X 17 year cicadas, not 14 as I stated earlier.

Washington Post story, Whistling Sweet Nothings, Cicadas Abuzz, June 1, 2004

"Act One was self-explanatory. Hibernating cicada nymphs emerged from the ground and crawled around.

Act Two also was straightforward. They molted and left behind a diaphanous, buggy husk. They began to fly.

Act Three, the Washington region has learned over the past week or so, is more mysterious and complex, something you almost have to experience to understand. Words seem inadequate to describe that vaguely menacing hum-whistle that seems to be everywhere but emanates from no single place in particular.

Hollywood imagery helps.

"It feels like an alien spaceship coming in," said Arlington resident Gene Miller, 66.

"You ever watch that old 'Star Trek' episode where they leave their phasers on and try to melt something?" asked George Fox of Alexandria. "That's what it sounds like to me."

We've entered the peak of the Brood X emergence -- a roughly three-week period when millions of male insects are doing what evolution designed them to do, which is mate before they die. That means the males are singing, often in unison. The collective mating call produces what many described in a sort of shorthand as, "you know, the UFO sound."

Male cicadas gather in densely packed "choruses," projecting what entomologist David Marshall said is "among the loudest sounds in nature." The females are silent.

"If those males don't mate, they've utterly failed," said Marshall, of the University of Connecticut. "So everything they're doing is centered around that sound."

The noise probably will last until the third week of June, when most of the cicadas probably will be dead, said Gaye Williams, a Maryland Department of Agriculture entomologist. Predicting precisely when the emergence will end is difficult, she said, because it depends on many variables -- temperature, moisture, humidity.

They sing until the bitter end, she said.

"When they're dying, it's the last thing that goes," she said. "At the very end, it almost sounds like a heart monitor. It's very sad."

The singing is mostly a daytime phenomenon. At night, cicadas for the most part go quiet because cooler temperatures and darkness calm them down. Conversely, direct sunlight and heat amplify the racket.

"That's the main thing the males are doing out there," Marshall said. "They're doing some feeding, but other than that, they're calling to convince the females."

The sound is produced by membranous panels beneath the cicada's wings. The panels, called tymbals, vibrate rapidly. The cicada's body, mostly hollow, serves as an amplifier. Even the bug's eardrum gets in on the noise making, vibrating along with the tympanum to produce an even louder noise.

Each species has a signature song. The noise we hear in the Washington area is produced by three different species, all part of the emergence.

Although it can be hard to tell when the cicada chorus is fully amped up, there are dozens of distinct sounds. Some cicadas prefer to whir. Some whistle. Others click.

When a male cicada's song leads to success, specific sounds lead up to the procreative act, and then others are emitted during the denouement, Marshall said.

"It's a very fast ticking," he said.

Cicadas also emit a distress signal when they are threatened or trapped, a sound that is louder, less musical and more rattlelike than the mating call.

This seems to unsettle listeners more.

Staci Largen, 27, said she was awakened one recent morning in her fifth-floor Arlington apartment by what she initially thought was a person screaming. The noise came through her closed window. She later bought earplugs so she could sleep.

"It sounds like somebody getting ax-murdered," Largen said. Others likened it to the thrushing squawk in Alfred Hitchcock's horror classic "The Birds."

Gene Miller, a retired American Airlines freight handler, said it provides a "pleasant" soundtrack to his daily routine. He was scribbling in a book of logic problems -- his late-morning diversion of choice -- recently in Fort Ward Park in Alexandria.

The UFOs were descending.

"I think it's fantastic. I just like it, okay?" said Miller, sipping a Diet Coke at his favorite picnic table. "When they go away, I'm going to miss them."

The chorus can reach about 90 decibels, experts said. That's roughly the equivalent of listening to a lawnmower from about 10 feet away.

The noise isn't likely to cause hearing damage, said Brad A. Stach, president of the American Academy of Audiology in Reston.

Eighty decibels is generally considered the threshold for hearing- damaging noise, Stach said. But it takes prolonged exposure to noise above 80 decibels to begin causing problems.

"The likelihood that [cicadas] are going to cause you any permanent problems is small," Stach said.

It is the haunting vibrato of the cicada choruses, less than the volume, that seems to inspire artistic interpretation. Tamara Smyth, a lecturer at Stanford University, designed the tymbalimba, an elaborate metal instrument which is played with the fingers, like a piano. It interacts with a computer to produce music.

George Fox, an Alexandria Web designer and amateur composer, has written a song called "Brood X" (http://www.f2sys.net/brood-x/), which he produced with synthesizers. Melded into the throbbing electronic baseline are recordings of real cicada noise.

"The rhythm track, what would be normally played on a cymbal or a high hat, are actually cicada," Fox said.

Fox also wrote a song for the cicadas during their last emergence, 17 years ago. He tried to reproduce it by turning a bicycle upside down, spinning the wheel and clicking drumsticks across the wheel and spokes.

"It was really experimental," Fox said. "I don't know if it was all that listenable."

It's a tough noise to describe, much less duplicate. When words fail, even such experts as the University of Connecticut's Marshall resort to mimicry.

"Wheeeeeeeeeeroo, wheeeeeeeeeroooo," the entomologist said. "Wheeeeeeeeeroo."

[Hot Ptah]

That's what we have in Kansas City every summer.

[Eric]

They do come out every year in Kansas City. The noise they make is deafening. It would permanently harm your hearing if you stood in our back yard for any period of time in July or August, especially as sundown approaches. You can hardly hear conversation inside the house, when all of the doors and windows are closed.

No kidding, I agree with you and FFA, they are particularly loud this year. Fortunately (?) it has been too damn hot to be outside much ...

[Joe G]

I think there are two main species, at least according to my ears, in this area. It's pretty tame in comparison to what you guys are describing. It's a constant where there are trees, but not overwhelming, and the main ones you hear are not unpleasant sounding. Kind of a high pitched whine or drone (though there's no real center pitch that you can actually discern), very smooth, and almost electric sounding.

[Free For All]

Kind of a high pitched whine or drone (though there's no real center pitch that you can actually discern), very smooth, and almost electric sounding.

Kind of like this?

[shrugs]

love the sound.

reminds me of youth in a Stand By Me kinda way.

[Joe G]

Kind of a high pitched whine or drone (though there's no real center pitch that you can actually discern), very smooth, and almost electric sounding.

Kind of like this?

Is that an empty cicada shell she's looking at on the end of that guitar?

[Soul Stream]

I've lived in the South so long, I don't even notice the sound...although I do enjoy it. However, if you ever get right up on one of those things when they make that sound it's loooouuuud as hell!

[robviti]

...No kidding, I agree with you and FFA, they are particularly loud this year...

i think i know why...

[Jazzmoose]

...No kidding, I agree with you and FFA, they are particularly loud this year...

i think i know why...

It's that high end boost...

[Hot Ptah]

Recent article from Kansas City Star on the types of cicadas we have in Kansas City, and how loud they are this summer:

Posted on Tue, Aug. 22, 2006

When it’s really hot, cicadas sing out even louder and prouder.

By EDWARD M. EVELD

The Kansas City Star

At some point this summer, cicadas moved from backup vocals to headliner.

They’re so loud you can be in your car, windows up, air conditioning on freeze, radio blaring, and still hear them. Dogs glance warily at the trees before agreeing to go for a walk.

It’s the males making all the noise, accomplished by muscle contractions that vibrate membranes in their abdomens. It’s said they’re vying for the attention of females.

“I’ve noticed incredibly large numbers,” said Lee Burgess, entomologist with the Missouri Department of Agriculture. “It’s a heck of a year for them.”

Why?

“They had a big hatch for some reason,” said Burgess about the 10 or so cicada species common in the area. “And they absolutely love hot, dry weather. They’re one of our most heat-driven insects. That’s when they shine the most.”

These ear-splitting cicadas are the regular “dog day” varieties, which begin to emerge at the summer solstice and grow in number and voice through the season, finally dwindling at the end of September. Burgess said he recalls 1990 as another year when the weather boosted a cicada din.

These are not, however, the “periodical” cicadas, which emerge en masse and on cue here every 17 years, said Bob Bauernfeind, a Kansas State University Research and Extension entomologist. The next appearance for those cicadas is set for 2015, and they emerge in May to provide early-season sound effects.

Sometimes the dog day cicadas are called “annual” cicadas, a term that could be misleading because they don’t have one-year life cycles, Bauernfeind said. They’re annual in the sense that we hear them every year, but cicadas spend several years feeding underground before climbing out, sprouting wings and looking for mates. Dog day cicadas may stay below ground for two to four or more years, depending on the species.

Pay close attention, Bauernfeind said, and you can discern calls of different species. Some sound like “zwick, zwick,” others more like “zuh-wee, zuh-wee.” Another species, which prefers grasslands and shrubs to tall trees, makes a throaty, rattling sound, he said.

Presumably, female cicadas are quite discerning when it comes to sound. But, Bauernfeind said, he was once in the field collecting cicada specimens and came across a road crew using equipment that made a buzzing sound.

“Every time we run the machine,” the crew said, “cicadas congregate all over it.”

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Cicadas, locusts and grasshoppers

When some people say “locust,” they usually mean cicada. When entomologists say “locust,” they mean grasshopper.

Why do people incorrectly refer to cicadas as locusts?

One theory is that when colonists arrived in America and encountered a brood of cicadas, they thought they were locusts from the Bible story and the incorrect name stuck.

“I suspect the problem is the noise-making,” said George Byers, professor emeritus of entomology at the University of Kansas. “Grasshoppers, or really locusts, make noise and cicadas make noise. I think people just don’t make the distinction.”