Category: Cicada Mania

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Citizen Science Old Message Board

Cicadas, Social Media and Community Science

Want to meet other cicada fans, help with cicada science projects, or simply check out cicada photos, images, or video? Try these projects and links.

Connect to Cicada Mania

Cicada Mania on FacebookCicada Mania on FlickrCicada Mania on TwitterCicada Mania on YouTubeCicada Mania on Vimeo

Cicadas @ UCONN Mapping Project

In 2014, contribute your Magicicada/Periodical/17 & 13 Year cicada sightings to Cicadas @ UCONN (formerly Magicicada.org). They will add your report to their Google map.

→ Cicadas @ UCONN (formerly Magicicada.org)

Citizen Science Projects

Want to participate in a cicada community science project? Check out the cicada science projects on Cicada Central. There is the The Simon Lab Nymph Tracking Project and a Magicicada Biology Class Exercise.

If you are in Ohio or Kentucky and spot a periodical cicada this year (2014), send a geo-tagged cellphone photo to Gene Kritsky.

Your Wild Life wants your dead cicadas! They will use them to study the effects of urbanization (pollution, etc.) on the cicadas.

Discuss cicadas on Twitter

Use hash tags like #cicadas for general cicada issues. Use @cicadamania to get my attention.

→ Cicada Mania on Twitter

Discuss cicadas on Facebook

Once you’re done reporting your cicada sighting to magicicada.org, head over to Facebook to discuss your cicada experiences.

→ Cicada Mania Discussion Board on Facebook

Share your cicada photos, sounds and videos

Share your cicada photos and videos with the world:

→ Cicada Photos Group on Flickr

→ Cicadas on Pinterest (note, there’s no guarantee just photos of cicadas will show up)

Cicada Mania Videos and Audio:

→ Cicada Mania on Vimeo

→ Cicada Mania YouTube

Update:

If you want to tag a species, you can use what’s called a “machine tag” or “triple tag” (see Wikipedia article on Tags).

taxonomy:binomial=Magicicada tredecim
taxonomy:binomial=Magicicada neotredecim
taxonomy:binomial=Magicicada tredecassini
taxonomy:binomial=Magicicada tredecula

If you’re tagging on sites that use spaces instead of commas (like flickr) put them in quotes when you enter them.

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Old Message Board

Latest Comments on Cicada Mania

Want to know the latest comments happening on Cicada Mania?

The 10 Latest Comments from the Website


Message Board Archives

The message board Archives can be useful for researching Broods that emerged in the late 90s and 00s.

→ Visit the message board archvies and scroll through 1000’s of cicada questions and sightings.

Categories
Cicada Mania

Any German Cicada Fans?

Any cicada fans who speak German, or are in Germany?

Sonja Beeker of the German radio program Neonlicht interviewed me last week. You can download the mp3 of the video from this page. It was my favorite interview of the season, believe it or not.

Here is a description:

Sie sind so klein. Aber sie machen einen ohrenbetäubenden Lärm. Schon eine einzige Zikade reicht, um einem den Schlaf für die Nacht zu rauben. Was aber, wenn Milliarden von Zikaden nach 17-jähriger Reifezeit schlüpfen und über die USA herfallen? Dann wird’s laut. Ein bisschen eklig. Vielleicht aber auch lecker. Wie man’s nimmt. Unsere Reporterin hat ein paar Ostküstenbewohner besucht, die sich auf die Plage vorbereiten.

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Cicada Mania

Cicada Mania is not shutting down

I had my April Fool’s Day fun, except Cicada Mania fans are smart folks and figured it out immediately.

Frenzy of lies!

Also, Hipster Cicada made an appearance:

Hipster Cicada

Categories
Cicada Mania

The 17-Year Itch

I’m in the April edition of Wired magazine. Go to your newsstand and buy a stack.

April Wired.

Categories
Cicada Mania

Cicada News for March 2013

There’s going to be a lot of cicada news this year, so I’m going to start publishing a regular cicada news feature. Here is a recap of news for March, so far.

Two articles that are getting a lot of buzz:

The 17-Year Cicadas Are Coming in the Business Insider.

The Cicadas Are Coming! Crowdsourcing An Underground Movement on NPR.

Flying salt shakers of death, written by Angie Macias, is an article about the Massospora fungus that attacks cicadas.

Cicadas’ antibacterial trick may help humans, written by Russell McLendon, is an article about how the structure of cicada wings help them defend themselves from bacteria. “Scientists have found tiny spikes on cicada wings that rupture and kill bacterial cells — a disease-fighting strategy that might also work in manmade materials”.

Categories
Cicada Mania Pop Culture

Cicada Mania News

Saturday the BBC stopped by Cicada Mania headquarters to interview me for a Periodical Cicada episode of their show Nature’s Weirdest. The episode will also feature Dr. Gene Kristsky, and other cicada experts. The show will air in January, and hopefully end up on NetFlix, BBC America or YouTube sometime after that. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b019f6kv Here’s a photo of the amazing crew that interviewed me:

BBC film crew

Also, my friends David and Claire gave me this very nice cicada whistle from Peru:

Cicada Whistle

Categories
Old Message Board

2011 General Cicada Questions

I am interested in building a large cage, do you have any tips?

I am interested in building a large cage, do you have any tips?

Comment by Rw — February 17, 2011 [AT] 3:49 pm

I know its early but I have a theory on this years emergence of Brood XIX in Missouri

I know its early but I have a theory on this years emergence of Brood XIX in Missouri. After hearing about some 2010 stragglers from brood IV in eastern Kansas and witnessing a handful of stragglers in the Kansas City area myself, I am starting to wonder if we will see some of brood IV emerging 4 years early along with brood XIX. I’m curious to see if the Magicicadas in the areas of eastern kansas/western Missouri have changed their life cycle from 17 years to 13. It would be very interesting.

Comment by Steve — January 27, 2011 [AT] 1:14 pm

Categories
Cicada Mania

What’s next for Cicada Mania?

Autumn (in North America) is usually a slow time for cicadas and this Cicada Mania website, so I have time to clean stuff up and decide what to do next to the site.

Now I turn to you, cicada fans, enthusiasts, and researchers: what would you like to see more of (or less of) on CicadaMania.com ? Please share your thoughts in the comments section of this post.

Looking forward, there’s the Brood I emergence next year in Virginia and West Virginia which should generate some buzz, and then Brood II in 2013 in the east which should be a big event.

Categories
Cicada Mania Lucky Cicada Key Chain Pop Culture Video

The Legendary Lucky Cicada Keychain

Thee Legendary Lucky Cicada Keychain from Cicada Mania on Vimeo.

Update (5/2011): I finally found one of these keychains, but I’m going to keep looking for more. Plus we have, Cicada Keychain Parts, Packaging scans from Ben, Packages and images found by Roy, and a scan from an Archie McPhee catalog from Suzanne M.

Once or twice a year someone e-mails Cicada Mania asking if we know where to
find the cicada keychain — you know, “the one that buzzes”. Although there
are many keychains which feature
cicadas (e.g. trapped in amber),
I’ve never found the cicada keychain online.

I haven’t found these in stores since Clinton was in office. Back in the day,
you could find them in mall stores like “The Nature Company”, “The Science Nook”
and “The Planet Store”. Once, in the late 90’s I asked the manager of one of these
stores about the these
keychains and she said: “we don’t carry them any more, the last batch was defective”.
She seemed angry that I even asked her about them. I wish I knew more. Maybe these
stores lost so much money because of these defective key chains that they all went
out of business? Or maybe they didn’t sell enough whale song CDs, glow-in-the-dark
moon stickers, or mystical crystals to pay the rent?

I’ve spent way too much time looking for these keychain online, and I’ve
pretty much given up hope.

  • I’ve searched numerous online stores that specialize in novelties and keychains.
  • I’ve e-mailed these stores requesting that they stock these keychains — but I get no response.
  • I’ve searched ebay.
  • I’ve spend hours doing Google searches.

There are two problems with searching for stuff like this online:

  1. Search engines have a hard time indexing online stores (for technical reasons
    I won’t waste your time with), and…
  2. Who knows how people would describe these things?
    Are they keychains, key chains, keyrings, or key rings? Are they cicadas, locusts,
    insects or bugs? Do they buzz, chirp, scream, or beep?

While searching for cicada keychain:

Online stores I’ve searched include:

Update: I recently tried to get the CEO of Archie McPhee to reintroduce this product: