With the east coast preparing for the return of this once-in-seventeen-years visitor,
a website has dared to challenge the media lies and expose the truth about this pest (http://www.cicadaville.com/).

;) Peace.

I grew up in Kansas, used to hear Cicada's droning in the trees all day long. I never viewed them as a pest, but of course I was no farmer. I find it odd that they are attributed with this seventeen year cycle. There were Cicadas every year. I don't think they all come out at the same time, they just take years to emerge from their pupa. I seem to remember that their are seven year and three year cicadas as well.

I used to have a lot of fun playing with their cast off skins that you could find gripping to trees. My brother shot one with a bb gun from about 50 yards one time. Damn fine shot. Anyway, this is all nostalgia and has nothing to do with the issue at hand, so I'll shut up now.

edit: Haha, funny site. Beware the deadly venom tube. :p

I'm so scared. I need someone to help me wrep myself in cellophane so they can't lay their eggs under my skin. Good, they can't get me any more. Now, if only I could breath.

If you realy want to get TRUE facts you ought to check out this (http://www.cicadamania.net/faq.html) site (see numbers 13, 15, and 21).

I find it odd that they are attributed with this seventeen year cycle. There were Cicadas every year. I don't think they all come out at the same time, they just take years to emerge from their pupa. I seem to remember that their are seven year and three year cicadas as well.:p

can't remember where, but, from an evolutionary perspective, I'd heard that 2 species of cicada emerge at 17 years and 13 years respectively. that these are prime numbers is an evolutionary predator avoidance strategy, so that predators cannot time predation on emergence periodicity. don't know how true it is, but it was interesting.

I just checked out Enigma's site above. It mentioned a variety of dog day cicadas with a couple year cycle. I'm guessing these are the one's I'm familiar with. The seventeen year variety is the Magicicada. They emerge in broods. And sometimes there are several broods in one area so seem to arrive in different cycles. The pics on the site seem more colorful than the cicadas I remember.

They also mention soil chimneys from the grubs emerging to shed their skins. The cicadas I'm familiar with make no chimneys. Just holes in the ground. I've never seen one emerge, but I've always found the hole near a tree with a husk on it.

I don't think they all come out at the same time, they just take years to emerge from their pupa.Each "brood" comes out at exactly the same time. The strain that's making the headlines now is the 17-year cicada. There are 17 different broods so one pops up each year, but this one, "Brood X" is by far the largest.

Their emergence is triggered by the temperature. Coming out at exactly the same time is a species survival trait. They're only above ground for about three weeks, so there are no predators that have evolved to specialize in long-cycle cicadas. Therefore, the raccoons and bears and trout and crows and all the regular insectivores just eat their fill, and eventually they can't eat any more. But there are still plenty left to breed and restart the cycle. This odd way of survival is called "predator satiation."

Paul is right about the 13 and 17 year strains. Prime numbers make it highly unlikely that both strains will emerge during the same bad year and die off.

There are other strains that come out more frequently and there are other species of cicada that have an annual cycle.

I'm in Washington DC and the Post is full of stories about them. Even the food section has recipes. Some people regard them as a delicacy and cook them like crabs. I've always said that shellfish are just aquatic insects so why do we eat them.

My question to you scientists:

These insects spend seventeen years underground as larva, feeding by sucking the sap out of tree roots. That's got to be just about the least nutritious food source that any animal has ever tried to live on.

No mammal or bird can live by eating the main parts of plants that contain no protein. They all either: eat nuts and seeds as well, which contain protein; augment their diet with worms and insects, which contain a lot of protein; or have huge bacterial cultures in their digestive tract which convert cellulose into protein.

Are the rules of nutrition different for insects and the other lower orders? Do cicadas, grasshoppers, caterpillars and all the other insects that appear to subsist on cellulose have bacterial cultures in their tiny digestive tracts? Or do they have the right chemistry to manufacture protein out of cellulose, all by themselves?

rofllmfao that was a wicked laugh