Here’s a picture of the Cicada Mania staff preparing a new post:
(I need a vacation.)
August 9, 2005
August 7, 2005
22 New Tibicen and Okanagana photos!
NEW! Gerry Bunker’s Tibicen Gallery: Photos from Gerry who runs the Massachusetts Cicadas web site.
NEW! Elise Solloway’s Tibicen Gallery: Photos taken southwest of Woodward, Oklahoma, the first week in July 2005
Photo by Elise:
NEW! Sloan Childers’s Tibicen Gallery: Photo taken in Round Rock Texas.
NEW! Natasha’s Okanagana rimosa Gallery: Okanagana rimosa, taken in Edmonton, Alberta.
Brood X: Year of the Cicada documentary
Director Rohit Colin Rao is getting set to release his documentary Brood X: Year of the Cicada. The documentary focuses on the Brood X emergence of last year. The trailer looks awesome.
Speaking of Brood X, I found a home movie from 2004 on the Internet Archive: Cicadas in Cincinnati, May 2004.
August 4, 2005
Jar Fly, Harvest Fly, Locust, Dog Day cicada
There are many nicknames for cicadas. Periodic cicadas (17-year/13-year Magicicadas) are often called Locusts. Annual, summertime cicadas (primarily Tibicens) are called Jar Fly or Jarfly, Harvest Fly or “Dog Day” cicada depending on what part of the USA you’re from.
I found this site which provides guesses at the entomology of Jar Fly:
One is that when you catch one and hold it in your hand it “jars” or vibrates. The other thought is that the nickname came from the constant singing that might “jar” or unsettle some people’s nerves who are not accustomed to hearing it for hours on end.
My uneducated guess would be that kids catch them and put them in jars, hence “jar fly”.
Thanks to Becky for asking about Jarflies.
August 1, 2005
Have you seen an unusually large number of cicadas this year?
Chris Simon a Professor, Ecology & Evolutionary Biology from the University of Connecticut asked us to post this on our site, and so we did.
Dear Cicadamaniacs,
If you have seen unusually large numbers of cicadas this year (or
last),and have not seen such numbers for a long time, can you please
report them to me? Chris dot Simon at UCONN dot edu? Please report
the location in which you saw the cicada, what month and year, how
long it has been since you have seen a similar emergence magnitude.This seems to be an unusually good cicada year, maybe related to
unusually wet or otherwise favorable weather:Dan Johnson from Southern Alberta, Canada reported an outbreak of
Okanagana synodica this year. He says: “I saw only a few between
1983 and 1985, then a few per year in 1986-88, then rare again, then
slightly more in 2000-2003, and only last year did they bloom, and
really with a bang (more than 1000X). My study area is southern
Alberta and Saskatchewan, mainly mixed grass sites in Alberta, plus
fescue foothills.” He had not seen an emergence like this in the 20
years he had worked there.John Cooley reports Okanagana rimosa and canadensis as being very
dense this year in Northern Michigan and Dan Vanderpool reported that
an unidentified species of cicada was out in Northern Idaho that
residents noted they had never heard before (at least not in big
numbers) and one respondent had lived there for 30 years.This record was from last year: Eric Toolson of New Mexico writes-
Last year, there was a widespread & heavy emergence of Tibicen
townsendii across a rather large area of central New Mexico
grassland. Prior to that, I knew of only one population in an area
of several hundred square miles, and that occupied an area of only
about 2 hectares. That population has been emerging in good numbers
for over a decade [in this location], but I never saw the species
anywhere else within a distance of several tens of miles in any
direction. I had formed the impression that although T. townsendii
was geographically widespread, its range was occupied by a relatively
few, widely-scattered, discrete populations that were failing to
occupy what seems to be a lot of contiguous suitable habitat.Cicadas are known for their boom and bust years. It would be nice to
start keeping track of them.Thanks very much,
Chris
July 27, 2005
Do cicadas sing at night?
A few people have asked me if cicadas sing at night. The truth is, in most cases, they do not. Most of the time when you hear an insect at night it is a cricket or katydid. However, there are a few cases when cicadas will sing at night:
- In the presence of artificial light sources, like streetlights & floodlights, or a full moon. I turned on a flood light tonight to test this and it worked: a cicada started to sing.
- When it’s extraordinarily hot.
- If the cicada is disturbed or attacked.
- If they’re overcrowded
Thanks to John Cooley for most of this information.
Emergence of Prime Numbers as the Result of Evolutionary Strategy
Professor Douglas Galvao of the State University of Campinas has written a paper titled Emergence of Prime Numbers as the Result of Evolutionary Strategy. He is hoping to get feedback from the scientific / cicada community.
We investigate by means of a simple theoretical model the emergence of prime numbers as life cycles, as those seen for some species of cicadas.
You can download a PDF version of the paper. Windows users will need Adobe Acrobat Reader to view it, and Mac users can simply use Preview.
You can contact Prof. Douglas Galvao, as well:
Prof. D.S. Galvao
Head of Applied Physics Department
State University of Campinas
Campinas – Sao Paulo – BRAZIL
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Tibicen fungi blues
Here’s a nice photo of a Neotibicen cicada infected with Massospora fungi. Yuck! Thanks to Matt for the photo.
Cicada Pie Recipe
These sort of things disgust me, but I’m posting it anyway.
Four cups of chopped rhubarb, 1 cup of fresh cicadas, washed and any hard parts removed; 1&1/3 cups white sugar, 6 tablespoons all-purpose flour, 1tablespoon butter, and a 9-inch double crust pie crust.
You’ll find the rest of the recipe in this article from the Arizona Republic: Answering bug query is easy as pie.
July 16, 2005
