Crickets and Cicadas Sing A Rare and Different Tune

New at Reason: While the Times sings a 17-year song of youth, Jacob Sullum is battling his own personal Hephaestus Plague.

Comments

[Janine]

I lived in Nashville during the last cicada plague. A man was hosting a college reunion (I think), and he painted his house to welcome his guests. Bad move.

I don't think even a sandblaster was able to remove all the bits of cicada stuck to the paint.

[xray]

http://www.cicadaville.com/

[J]

Do these cicadas eat everything in sight, or do they take the emerge-and-fuck-til-we-die-so-there's-no-time-for-eating approach to insect life?

On a related note, I'm planning on forming a rock band called "Harmless Mist of Cicada Urine." All musical noises will be made by rubbing various body parts together.

[Highway]

J, they barely eat anything. It's not like Gypsy Moths.

And despite living in Cicada Central (Mid-Atlantic), I've only seen a total of 1 live cicada. I do have cicada wings and legs all over my porch tho. Something had a good lunch. 🙂

[art]

they split the bark especially new growth and lay their eggs there. In later years you'll see these scars. sometimes they will kill trees this way.

I live in a rural area of Virginia out in the woods and while I don't look forward to the 17 cicadas because of the damage they can do, I do look forward to the annual species that come in July. I love going to sleep to the incessant contrapunctual rhythm of the calls. God is Good.

[Sir Real]

Christ, you'd think Jacob was the only person to ever be inconvenienced by cicadas-

Suck it up and deal, man.

[LB]

I tell the neighbors' kids that cicadas only eat one thing - BRAAAINS. They crawl in your ears and slowly consume your brains. I then suggest they wear earmufs to bed.

[dude]

I'm in Dayton Ohio. Just up the road from Cincinnati, Ground Zero in Cicada Storm 2004 or "CS04" as the fans call it.

Haven't seen anything until today when I noticed a few on the trees. Very obviously different than the usual ones in that they have bright red eyes and are much louder.

[dude]

I'm in Dayton Ohio. Just up the road from Cincinnati, Ground Zero in Cicada Storm 2004 or "CS04" as the fans call it.

Haven't seen anything until today when I noticed a few on the trees. Very obviously different than the usual ones in that they have bright red eyes and are much louder.

[Mo]

When did people stop calling the 17 years locusts? It sounds so much cooler and Biblical.

[pedant]

Well... cicadas aren't exactly locusts. Cicadas are big and annoying and don't eat anything. Locusts are like grasshoppers on steroids.

[Larry Edelstein]

I sympathize with Sullum. Bugs are gross. I wouldn't want them all over the place. And I'd be further annoyed by writers rhapsodizing over them. Even if they have a point, too.

[Geotech]

For most of my life my dad and I have strictly called Cicadas 'locusts'. I'm not sure if that's a regional (midwestern and/or southern) thing or not. Hearing about swarms of locusts in the Bible, as a little kid, I never understood what the big deal was.

[Douglas Fletcher]

That's because you weren't raised as an ignorant camel-humping Bedoin.

[zymurgist]

Where I work, in Prince Georges County, Maryland, you can hear them all day and they are all over the parking lot. Where I live, in western Maryland, I'm not seeing any evidence of cicadas. I'm more concerned about the elder box bugs as they come out every year.

[Mr. Nice Guy]

I can be every bit as cynical as Sullum, but I share in the amusement of this bug attack. These cicadas are so goofy. They strike me as being massively incompetant but still manage to survive. With all this terrorism and war bullshit happening, we need a harmless distraction. Oh yeah, my girlfriend, a folksy mid-westerner, says that they hear the chicadas chant mockingly "PharrrrrrOH....PharrrrrrrOH". If you listen closely, it sort of sounds like that. Nice reference to Exodus. Not a bible-thumper myself, but still find that charming.

[GSM]

In Iowa, as of 17 years ago, we also called them "locusts".

Those things are dumber than a college student communist club.

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