Dedicated to the Study of the Cicadas of Massachusetts and New England

 

How To Do Stuff With Cicadas

About Cicada How To News Category

Like the main title of this section states. "How To Do Stuff With Cicadas" contains articles that discuss such things as the best methods to employ to catch cicadas or how to preserve your cicadas to enjoy later. Look for this section to grow extensively as time goes by as there are multiple methods of catching and preserving your specimens.

How to Identify Eastern Brood XIX Magicicadas.

Identifying the Eastern Brood XIX Magicicadas Brood XIX periodical cicadas is the largest of all the periodical cicada broods. Occurring every 13 years, it occupies the largest geographic area of the United States. These cicadas (in the genus known as Magicicada) consists of four distinct species each with their own unique male calling song and morphology. Of the four species, only three are known to occur in the eastern United States. Massachusetts Cicadas conducted distribution survey work in Virginia in order to determine in greater de

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Date Posted: 2011-06-19 Comments: (6)

How to label your cicada/insect specimens.

How to label your cicada/insect specimens. With this year's Brood XIX periodical cicada emergence happening in the south, I thought it would be useful to offer some suggestions on the methods that I use to label cicada specimens collected in the field. I would assume that a lot of you out there would probably be doing the same thing. That is, collecting specimens but actually don't know the best way to label or catalogue them. And, actually you could use this article along with the "How to Preserve Your Cicadas - Pinning" article to help

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Date Posted: 2011-05-13 Comments: (3)

How To Catch Cicadas

How to Catch Cicadas I have been asked several times how I am able to catch and study so many Cicadas. Well, I tell you, it isn't easy. It takes patience and perseverance. If you lack either then you can forget it because a lot of leg work is involved when catching Cicadas for collections or for study. In the beginning I tried various methods that didn't pan out well. Since Cicadas in Massachusetts have a tendency to stay very high up in trees, unless I wanted to climb a tree there was no way for me to catch a Cic

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Date Posted: 2010-06-01 Comments: (65)

How to Preserve Your Cicadas - Pinning

Cicada spreading board Why its so Important to Keep Good Insect Collecting Data. When collecting cicadas or any other insect for that matter, it is very important not to just go out willy-nilly trying to gather up all the cicadas you can find, run a pin through them and stick them in a shadow box or specimen drawer only to be forgotten about. When you want to view them or study them at a later date, chances are you'll have forgotten vital information that will help you appreciate a particular specimen better. No

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Date Posted: 2010-06-01 Comments: (45)

How To Determine Gender of Nymph Skins

Female cast off nymphal shell Have a look at the picture to the left. See that brown thing? That is a cast off nymphal skin (exuvium) of a Tibicen lyricen cicada. Pretty cool huh? Ever wonder what the sex of something like that is? Well, just recently I learned the trick to determine which gender of cicada left the nymphal skin behind, a girl cicada or a boy cicada. To be honest, I could never figure it out until recently. And in the spirit of what this web site is about and I quote: I'm going to try to learn something

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Date Posted: 2005-08-17 Comments: (2)

Latest Sightings

Submit Report

Did you spot an annual cicada or a cicada killer wasp? If you did and you have a photo and want to report it, please click the link below.

Brood I Information

The Brood I periodical cicada emergence happened in 2012 in Virginia, W. Virginia and Tennessee. Below are some of the highlights.

Brood XIX Information

The Brood XIX periodical cicada emergence has come and gone. Below is some information that you may find helpful.