Magicicada Brood XIX Emerges In Orange County, NC

No, I am not talking about some collection of Mexican Gangbangers. Magicicadas are a genus of flying insects that periodically emerge from underground, mate, and then die. In the Southeast right now, we are inundated with these things. They are commonly mistaken for locusts. The picture above is of a cicada on my driveway. As an aside, I haven’t seen eyes that red since I was in college.

They call a collection of these magicicadas that emerge together in a geographical location a brood. Entomologists attach cool labels and Roman Numerals to each brood which obviously legitimizes the whole deal – I mean it works for Super Bowls right? The batch of cicadas that is occupying my backyard right now is part of Brood XIX – The Great Southern Brood. This brood emerges every 13 years, having not made an appearance around here since 1998.

Brood XIX is the largest brood in the world – We’re Number 1! The quantity and volume of these cicadas. Some populations are as large as 1.5 million per acre – I haven’t personally counted the ones on my 1.37 acres but I can’t believe they are even close to that dense here.

The actual life cycle of these periodical cicadas is pretty amazing:

1. They spend 13 years (or 17 years for some species) underground attached to and sucking moisture and sap out of tree and shrub roots.
2. When the ground temperature reaches 64 degrees or so in the year of emergence, the brood performs this amazingly synchronized mass uprising out of the ground through tunnels they dig.  Around Hillsborough, this emergence happened while I was on a long weekend vacation in Virginia (around May 11 or May 12). I wish I would have been here to see the emergence. They basically coat the trees during this time.
3. Once above ground, they shed their skins (molt) and climb up trees to hang out on high hanging leaves and branches that are in sunlight.
4. The males sing this high-decibel mating call (often in a union called a chorus). The lucky ones, well, get lucky, and mate. (Females only do it once – males multiple times. Cue Male Haters.)
5. The females will drop their eggs into slits they cut into twigs – after about six weeks, the babies drop to the ground and burrow down underground and start the next 13 year cycle.

The whole purpose of the emergence is reproduction – the adults will all die within four to six weeks after emergence. Basically, they spend 13 years in the dark, come up for four weeks of sex, and then die. (Trying very hard to resist a joke in poor taste about Pope John XII.) I guess you could say they at least go out with a bang.

The din that a chorus of the males make when they are singing is pretty impressive. At least around here, the ruckus starts around 11:00 AM and doesn’t decrease until the sun goes completely down. The literature indicates that a single chorus can reach 100 decibels. I don’t think they are that loud here but it is quite noticeable.

Outside of the annoying noise, they are not much trouble. They are non-toxic and don’t bite or sting or transmit diseases (though apparently they can mistake human skin for tree bark if they get comfortable on you). I have noticed that they do make a distinctive crunch when I (accidentally of course) step on them during my jogs around the ‘hood.

Every day, a bunch of the dying cicadas fall on the driveway – they can’t fly anymore so I guess the wings are the first thing to go. They slowly move around and appear to be really lethargic (imagine that?). I guess if I was a really gracious host, I would offer the clearly spent insects a smoke or, at the very least, some Cicada Cialis.