This story has been all over the news, so I’m posting it. Champ the drug sniffing dog nearly chokes to death on 4 cicadas (video report). Don’t let your pets gorge themselves on cicadas. Like anything that’s an inch and a half long or longer, cicadas can become lodged in your pet’s throat, so keep a mindful eye on their insect dining habits.

Brood XIII is all but gone in and few select areas (like Westmont IL for instance). Will you miss them? You might find a couple stragglers next year, but you’re going to have to wait until 2024 for the next Brood XIII emergence.

At this point you should start to see flagging from the Brood XIII cicadas: brown, dead leaves where the cicadas laid their eggs.

If you’ve willing to travel, you can see and hear the Brood XIV next year too.

Deanna’s cicada photos on Flickr are a nice representation of the Brood XIII emergence. Check them out whenever you want to reminisce.

More Brood XIII photos to come, and lots of other cicada fun is coming up, so stay tuned!

Update: make sure you check out all the cool images people added to Comments section of the CicadaMania MySpace page.

We got our first IOWA sighting!

Questions:

1. When will they be gone??? About 2 weeks after the last one emerges. By the time Independence day rolls around, most places will be “liberated” from them.
2. What’s that smell??? Like any rotting animal, cicadas emit a funky stank after they die. I think they smell like old bacon grease, other’s say Limburger cheese, wet dog…
3. I haven’t seen any cicadas yet, does that mean I won’t see/hear any? Probably; time to get in the car and go to them.

Locations:

• Cedar River near Atalissa, Iowa
• Lombard and Elmhurst are “cicada heaven”
• At Lake Geneva at Aurora University the Cicada were EVERYWHERE
• Singing in Wheaton
• Palos Heights is crawling with these things.
• All over the place in Wheeling, IL
• EVERYWHERE in Schiller Park
• Big Foot Beach State Park (southern Wisconsin next to Lake Geneva)
• Aurora,IL