Latest Cicada News
Brood II Periodical Cicadas in New England
It's time to wake up from our long winter's nap to discuss another Periodical Cicada Brood scheduled for emergence this year. Last year, we saw the emergence of Brood I periodical cicadas in the mid-atlantic region and was concentrated in Virginia and West Virginia with a small disjunct population in Tennessee. The cicadas from that brood were of the 17 year variety.
The year prior to that (2011) was Brood XIX, a 13 year variety that made its presence known in a big way. It covered the
Date Posted: 2013-04-09 Comments: (10) Category: Cicada General Info
Mapping Brood I Continues - Day 4
Here's a quick update to let you know where we're at as far as mapping the Brood here in Virginia and West Virginia goes. Today was a bit of a wash out because it was nothing but rain until about 1:00 pm. But this gave me some time to get caught up on things like emails, writing and whatnot.
Yesterday, I stopped mapping in Franklin, W.V. and decided today that I would pick up where I left off and see just how far west the Brood goes. I headed west on Rte 33 out of Harrisonburg, Virginia. I deci
Date Posted: 2012-06-05 Comments: (4) Category: Cicada Missions
Mapping Brood I Periodical Cicadas - Day 3
Today was a pretty productive day as far as cicada mapping is concerned. I ended the mapping for the day yesterday outside of Brandywine, West Virginia along Route 33 West. Today.
I decided to pick right up where I left off continuing further west along Route 33 into Franklin, West Virginia. It is a very scenic route and the periodical cicadas were singing in very high densitities along this road.
This part of Route 33 in Franklin is known as "Friend Run Rd" and while the cicadas were screami
Date Posted: 2012-06-04 Comments: (0) Category: Cicada Missions
Brood I Cicadas Mapping Project - Day 2
Hi Folks, I can tell you that writing articles after a long day of driving around and taking geocoordinates can be very tiring and time-consuming. Not only is it a lot of stopping and starting, there are also a ton of things that need to get done afterwards. Things like sorting through tons of photos taken during the day, killing, sorting and labeling live cicada specimens, answering email and Facebook inquiries etc. All these things need to get done every evening even before any thought goes in
Date Posted: 2012-06-03 Comments: (5) Category: Cicada Missions
Brood I Periodical Cicadas Mapping Survey - Day 1
Massachusetts Cicadas is currently in Virginia doing some distribution mapping of the Brood I periodical cicadas. Like last year with Brood XIX, Massachusetts Cicadas is always curious about the periodical cicadas even though we in Massachusetts currently only experience periodical cicadas from Brood XIV. And, unfortunately, they emerged back in 2008.
Brood I is a smaller brood with the majority of species expected to appear in the Appalachian Highlands. Specifically, along the Valley & Rid
Date Posted: 2012-06-02 Comments: (2) Category: Cicada Missions
Brood I Periodical Cicadas in the Virginias
As the 2012 spring and summer cicada season commences, we can expect the arrival of yet another periodical cicada event. As mentioned in 2011, there will be periodic cicada emergences somewhere in the eastern United States starting in 2011 and continuing each year until 2021.
The 2011 cicada season gave rise to perhaps one of the largest periodical cicada emergences in North America. The arrival of Brood XIX periodical cicadas included 16 southern and eastern states and contained 4 di
Date Posted: 2012-04-07 Comments: (1) Category: Cicada General Info
When Ecdysis in Cicadas goes wrong.
I'd like to discuss in depth about the cicada's final molting process. While not unusual, as most arthropods go through a molting process in one form or another, the mechanics of the process (also known as "ecdysis") is quite fascinating.
About cicadas and their development cycle.
Female cicadas lay eggs in thin branches of trees and bushes. The type of species usually is indicative of whether the branches are live or dead wood. Some genera - like Tibicen females - generally lay their egg
Date Posted: 2012-02-05 Comments: (7) Category: Cicadas 101
Tibicen lyricen in New England
I have been particularly focused on New Hampshire and Maine this cicada season. Between finding new spots for O. rimosa - among other species - I am also focusing on Tibicen lyricen's northern-most range. Depending on who you talk to, some say that this species' ranges up into New Brunswick and even further into Canada. Some even say that it is New England's most common species even over Tibicen canicularis - the Northern Dog Day cicada.
However, even the term "most common" seems to be a point
Date Posted: 2011-07-25 Comments: (10) Category: Cicada General Info
Morphological Features of Okanagana rimosa
A couple of weeks ago I spent the day in Silver Lake New Hampshire as part of my projects to map cicada species in New England. I was very successful in capturing several specimens of Okanagana rimosa here. So I thought we would spend some time focusing on the morphology of this species. In some species of cicadas like the tibicens morphology can vary extremely depending on geographic location and habitat. However, even in O. rimosa there are slight differences in morphology even among individua
Date Posted: 2011-06-28 Comments: (1) Category: Cicada Projects