Spring has arrived and two flocks of cicadas emerge all at once. After spending more than a decade underground, they spend the rest of their lives tunneling through the earth to the tops of trees and chirping loudly in search of a mate.
In some places, people have already discovered the insects, or at least heard their calls.
Sammy Ramsey, an entomologist at the University of Colorado at Boulder, said he feels like these insects are being mistreated. To counter that, he uploaded a silly but surprisingly smooth music video to YouTube in 2021, when the early cicada species emerge. He hoped the song, called “Big Red Eyes,” would help people empathize with the isolation that cicadas endure. That's been the case for most of their lives, especially considering we were quarantined in the early stages of the pandemic.
Since then, Dr. Ramsey has been on a mission to change people's perceptions of cicadas. He is traveling to Illinois (where the two emerging populations are expected to partially overlap) to photograph the insects as they emerge from the soil. Dr. Ramsey recently spoke to the New York Times about the behavior of these creatures and why we should respect them rather than fear them.
The following conversation has been lightly edited for clarity.
Every summer, you can hear the cicadas. Why the sudden boom?
It is an annual, or dog-day cicada, and usually has green wings. Annual cicadas do not have the periodicity of magickas, which emerge quickly.
There's a reason why the seven species of periodic cicadas are called magickada. There is nothing else like it in the world. This crazy periodic cicada outbreak can only be experienced in North America. Because of this, they gained a reputation for being magical.
Something quite unusual is happening. This means that two different members of the cycle cicada emerge at the same time. Brood XIX he appears every 13 years, Brood XIII he appears every 17 years. They only synchronize every 221 years of his life.
Should cicadas be more appreciated?
When talking about eclosion, people usually use words associated with it being a frightening experience, as if it were an apocalyptic event or an insect invasion. But it's a beautiful and incredible experience for so many reasons.
Consider the fact that cicadas have been underground for 13 or 17 years. The fact that they are able to orchestrate this mass outbreak is a feat in itself.
Male cicadas coordinate their mating calls with each other. They all fly to the same tree and coordinate this buzzing. The cry is never the voice of a single cicada or a group of scattered cicadas. All of those things link together and create this amplified sound to sing to as many women as possible.
So how can you be friends with them?
Exposure therapy is a great method, but we know it doesn't work for everyone. A good place to start is to read about cicadas online. Instead of scary content about infestations, read content from scientists passionate about cicada outbreaks. Helps you understand what others are seeing.
Cicadas have been isolated for years, so it will be an incredible experience for them to finally be able to interact with other animals and find a mate. The song of cicadas is a song of pure romance. Thinking about this like a romantic symphony might change the way people feel about it.
After learning about them, you can move towards exposure. Go find it and touch it.
Where should I look to see cicadas?
Cicadas wait until evening to emerge from the ground. They wait for dusk as this is the most vulnerable stage of their entire life cycle and squirrels and birds are less likely to chase them.
Look for cicadas that burrow from turrets in the ground. They will climb the nearest vertical surface, such as the side of a house, a tree, a car tire, or anything else they can find. The back of the exoskeleton splits open, and a squishy white creature crawls out from inside. Cicadas take a long time to solidify, so they have to sit there for a while, barely able to move.
Eventually, they acquire the ability to fly and the males begin to sing. Their calls increase in intensity over a period of about a week and a half as more and more cicadas emerge from the ground, until it becomes the only sound throughout the day. At this time of year, if you look into the trees, you might see cicadas flying around. They are males looking for females who clap their wings to show interest in mating.
More than a month after they appear, it ends. By mid-July, periodic cicadas are usually no longer visible.
Is there anything I should be careful about?
Cicadas do not have the ability to cause physical damage. These big, beautiful creatures are the epitome of love.
However, oak leaf itch mites always pop up immediately after the cicadas die. These mites are almost invisible to the naked eye, only a few millimeters long, and under normal circumstances you would hardly notice them. However, mites feed on cicada eggs. Therefore, by the time the chicks emerge, their population grows tremendously. If you happen to be standing under a tree or on a windy day, you might get ticks. Their saliva contains neurotoxins that can cause itching when bitten.
In most cases, these mites are not dangerous. However, if you are sensitive to other insect bites, you may have a similar reaction to these mites.
How do cicadas affect our environment?
Once they emerge, they nourish the entire forest ecosystem. As a result of the additional energy, animals end up producing larger offspring. And when the cicadas die, they return nutrients to the ground, feeding soil microbes and surrounding trees and plants.
These creatures are also ecologically noteworthy indicators. Entire swarms of cicadas have been lost to human expansion as we paved the surface without thinking about what was underneath. It reminds us that our actions affect the environment.
On the one hand, these emergences show that we still have the ability to turn things around. Even though the world has changed dramatically, cicadas will still appear.
It has made me more optimistic about the state of the world and the gloom of climate change. Cicadas remind us that we are not defeated yet. That we need to keep fighting.