Cicadas

Some cicadas come out annually but some emerge only every 17 years. Coopers Rock in West Virginia is in the midst of the Brood V emergence. What this means is you hear cicadas in the background all the time and it’s loud! The weird part is that you don’t hear them close up, just in the distance.

Live bugs are everywhere. Cicada shells are everywhere. Dead bodies are everywhere. Live bugs occasionally fly up and hit you. We’ve found four live cicadas in the RV. It’s not that they are dangerous (no biting), but they are disgusting and creepy!

The life cycle is that the new nymphs crawl out of holes in the ground (again…holes are everywhere).

They crawl up a tree (or picnic table, chairs, bikes, etc) and molt their shell to become an adult. After this the males make that noise to attract a female to mate. The female lays eggs in a groove in a tree (which can damage young trees). Within 2-4 weeks, the adults all die. The eggs hatch and then the cicada feeds on tree fluids. It eventually drops down where it crawls around underground to feed on tree roots. Seventeen years later it all happens again.

I remember that last one in 1999. It was much worse. I couldn’t walk outside without being hit by a cicada. The dead bodies filled the cooling tower at work. We had to have maintenance people cleaning water filters every hour as the dead bodies plugged the filters. What a great picture to imagine!