magic cicadas?

If you're waiting for the 17-year locusts to appear, I hope you have a lot of patience. Only 8 years to go!

The locusts are cicadas, of course -- magic cicadas (Magicicada) to be generically specific (or should I say specifically generic). These are the so-called periodical cicadas that live underground in their nymph state for 17 years (some have a 13-year cycle) and then emerge en masse creating a massive buzzing, blooming cicada symphony, tuned up for quick mating to be followed post haste by egg laying in trees, nymph hatching and burrowing underground for another prime number of years before reemerging.

There have been lots of stories about this year's emergence of the 'Eastern brood', last seen in 1996, and this has aroused a good deal of local interest. There was even a page about them in the latest issue of the ELIAS (Eastern Long Island Audubon Society) Newsletter and my old friend David Rothenberg is coming out to SOFO this evening to perform with the insects; he loves to duet with non-human songsters and other sound-making creatures from the natural world and has written several books about the subject his latest being, appropriately, "Bug Music".

Unfortunately, there are not likely to be any cicadas around for him to duet with. For once, the reason has nothing to do with global warming or the destruction of the environment (or, for that matter, the lousy weather). The 17-year cicadas don't emerge all at once but have different cycles in different places; there are (according to various estimates) between seven and 15 known broods, each with a different timetable. The periodic cicadas that have been getting all the publicity belong to Brood II which is indeed widespread in the East -- but not Eastern Long Island. Our guys belong to another set of Eastern magic cicadas: Brood X which appeared here in 2004 when they were all over the place. 2004 plus 17 makes 2021. As I said, only eight years to go.

There may be some Brood IIs coming out on Western LI and we will have our regular annual cicadas emerging a bit later on. The Annuals are an entirely different insect and they (or at least some of them) emerge every year. Unlike the Periodicals (which emerge -- when they emerge at all -- in the spring and take all summer to complete their cycle), the Annuals come in the hot weather and are a typical feature of mid- to late summer; one of their common names is Dog-day Cicada. Alas, neither Magic Cicadas nor Dog-day Cicadas are likely to be singing out here this Memorial Day.

Eric Salzman