Wildlife Watching Wednesday: The Periodical Cicada

By: Tom Berg

The Periodical Cicada is a fairly large insect that emerges en masse – or in huge numbers – in the eastern half of the United States in certain years. The adult insects of many of these species have black upper bodies with orange legs and orange underparts. They also have bright red eyes that are hard to forget.  Their wings are clear with orange veins that become darker near the wingtips.

They are called periodical cicadas because they do not emerge every year. They emerge from the ground “periodically”. Of the seven species of periodical cicadas, four species have 13-year life cycles and the other three have 17-year life cycles. That means they spend almost their entire lives (13 years or 17 years, respectively) living underground, feeding on fluids from tree roots. Then during the springtime of their synchronized emergence year, they come forth in almost unbelievably large numbers.

Periodical cicadas can emerge in groups of more than a million individuals per acre. It really is a spectacle of nature! This mass emergence is a good strategy for survival, too. With so many cicadas crawling on the ground and climbing around in the trees, they easily overwhelm the hungry predators nearby with far more food than they can possibly eat. Almost everything likes to eat them, too, including birds of all kinds, raccoons, opossums, skunks, squirrels, foxes, coyotes, bats, spiders and even fish (if they emerge near water and fall in). Pets like dogs and cats eat them, too.  Some people even eat them!

When these cicadas emerge from the ground, they molt into their adult form and fly up into the treetops to find a mate. The males sing up in the tree branches with a loud, high-pitched ticking or buzzing call in an attempt to attract a female. Their life as an adult is very short; usually only a few weeks. After they mate, the females lay eggs in the bark of those tree branches and both males and females die.

In about two months (give or take a week or two) the larvae hatch and drop to the ground below the tree. They burrow into the ground and attach themselves to a tree root where they will stay and feed on tree sap for the next 13 or 17 years. Then the cycle repeats itself. It’s a strange life, but that’s part of the wonder of nature!

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