Crawling out from underground every 13 or 17 years, the periodical cicadas are nature’s kings of the calendar.

Trillions of evolution’s bizarro wonders, red-eyed periodical cicadas that have pumps in their heads and jet-like muscles in their rears, are about to emerge in numbers not seen in decades and possibly centuries.

Crawling out from underground every 13 or 17 years, with a collective song as loud as jet engines, the periodical cicadas are nature’s kings of the calendar.

These black bugs with bulging eyes differ from their greener-tinged cousins that come out annually. They stay buried year after year, until they surface and take over a landscape, covering houses with shed exoskeletons and making the ground crunchy.

This spring, an unusual cicada double dose is about to invade a couple parts of the United States in what University of Connecticut cicada expert John Cooley called “cicada-geddon.” The last time these two broods came out together in 1803 Thomas Jefferson, who wrote about cicadas in his Garden Book but mistakenly called them locusts, was president.

  • givesomefucks@lemmy.worldEnglish
    187·
    8 months ago

    Wasn’t it just a year or two ago there was supposed to be another “mega batch”?

    I feel like with less wildlife to eat them, all the broods are getting bigger.

    They evolved for a shit ton of wildlife to eat them before they can reproduce, and we just don’t have enough wildlife anymore.

    So everytime they come up, more make it back down.

    At a certain point, it’s going to end up killing a bunch of trees if enough cicadas make it back underground. Especially since they’ll be down there drinking tree roots for over a decade.

    • AdmiralShat@programming.devEnglish
      10·
      8 months ago

      This has nothing to do with population size, this is two broods emerging simultaneously, something that happens every couple hundred years. It’s in thr article

      • givesomefucks@lemmy.worldEnglish
        43·
        8 months ago

        https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/28/us/cicada-brood-x.html

        Literally every couple years, we get the “super brood” and it’s always treated as “once in a lifetime”.

        But they’re already becoming more varied.

        https://weather.com/science/nature/news/cicadas-brood-x-early-emergence-climate-change

        Because some always pop out. If there’s not enough predators, they reproduce and start another brood. Over time it gets it’s own cycle.

        But even on the boom years (which happen like every 5 years now) more are surviving

        It won’t take long for there to be an insane amount of cicadas every year.

        Without as much wildlife to eat them, they will over produce and destroy trees that normally would have survived.

        This is a serious thing and by the time we even realize it, it’ll be too late. Because they eat the roots from underground for years. B

      • givesomefucks@lemmy.worldEnglish
        87·
        8 months ago

        You’re streets behind…

        https://wexnermedical.osu.edu/blog/buckeyebites-cooking-with-cicadas

        Hillbillies have eaten them for generations.

        I had them as a kid once, fried up like wild mushrooms they weren’t bad. I forget what they called them to get kids to eat them, but the realization was better than when I found out “turkey fries” were deep fried turkey testicles, and not as bad when “extra dark meat chicken” was disclosed as rabbit/squirrel

        • dlpkl@lemmy.world
          3·
          8 months ago

          I just can’t over eating them with all their organs and poo still inside them.

            • dlpkl@lemmy.world
              3·
              8 months ago

              I mean, even though shrimp are arthropods like insects, with shrimp you typically remove the head, legs, and digestive tract before eating them. The tail’s usually the only thing left.

              • givesomefucks@lemmy.worldEnglish
                32·
                8 months ago

                Yeah, I should have said crawdads/crawfish.

                But they’re basically the same.

                Most people take the claws off, because there’s just no meat there and lots of shell. But they’ll leave the legs, head, everything else.

                Some people try to get the meat out with a fork, some people pop the whole thing in their mouth and spit the shell out. Some even eat the entire thing, the shell is really could for joint issues btw.

                There’s a lot of variation, but people eating cicadas have likely tried other weird food already. It’s not like in a couple months everyone is gonna be eating them.

        • danafest@lemm.ee
          31·
          8 months ago

          Last time they came around I decided to give it a shot. Best way was just pan fried with butter. Crunchy, slightly nutty flavor. Not bad at all and lots of free food.