Brood XIV on Cape Cod in Full Swing!

Brood XIV on Cape Cod in Full Swing!

Hey folks. This past Friday the 13th I was on the Cape again to do more distribution mapping. There are still tons of areas on the Cape that need to be covered so if you are willing to help out I'd sure appreciate it. Thanks to all who have reported the presence of Brood XIV or lack-thereof in their neighborhoods. Yes, the Distribution Maps have been updated again but more on that later.

By the way a special thank you goes out to my friends Kevin, Lisa and Fred for helping out and providing so many data points. We are still missing data points in the following areas:

• Woods Hole in Falmouth and points north.
• North of Brick Kiln Road and South of Thomas Landers Road.
• Sandwich North of the Airforce Base.
• Along Route 6A.
• All along the Southeast Coast from E. Falmouth to Osterville.
• Along Race Lane from Farmersville to Barnstable North and South.

There are still too many areas to list so if you see any gaps and can help fill them in then please report your Periodical Cicada sightings.

Remember, Negatives are as Good as Positives.

That's right, if you are in an area where there are no signs of periodical cicadas those are equally as good as the positives because that way we know that someone was in the area and watching out so please report those as well.

Magicicada Behaviors - Chorusing

As indicated in a previous posting below, click the thumbnail to the left to listen to chorusing periodical cicadas. I recorded this at the Quashnet Valley WMA well away from traffic. It gives you an idea of how dense the population is here, well away from major roads. Areas like this can be missed if you do not have access to these back woods. Click the thumbnail to watch the movie.

Magicicada Behaviors - Coaxing Males to Come to You.

If you're lucky you can get Male cicadas to come to you using the a simulated wing flick response. This was taught to me last year by John Cooley of the University of Connecticut. Note with a timed snapping of my fingers at the end of the male call, I get this male cicada to fly to my hand. Then still continuing with simulated wing flick, it continues to call while looking for the female. Click the thumbnail above and to the right to watch the movie.

Magicicada Behaviors - Interference Buzz and Third Stage Call.

Using a different cicada, in this next video I re-demonstrate the Coaxing effect with simulated wing flick response and simulated male calling. At the beginning of this video you will notice that the male cicada exhibits the previously noted "Interference Buzz" during my Brood XIII survey in 2007. Click here to read that report.

Magicicada Behaviors - Male Calling While Mating.

This next video is perhaps the most amazing behavior I have witnessed. It is of a male responding to a simulated wing flick and starts to call, then goes to second stage call and then finally third stage call while still mated with a female. This was so bizarre to me that I phoned David Marshall at UCONN and asked him about it. He indicated that he has seen this on several occasions during his study of Magicicadas. It is a strong indication that males may indeed mate more than once. I will be attempting an experiment later on. For now click the thumbnail above and to the right to watch the video.

Got Recordings? Send Them In!

Hey, have you got any recordings of Magicicadas either chorusing or of single males calling? We would be interested in them as part of our research project. The recordings must be free of background noises such as people talking and/or machine/traffic noise. If you have them please send them in. You can use the "Contact " link above. However, if your file is larger than 10 megabytes I will send instructions on how to ftp to this web site. Then you can just upload it to the server.

Massachusetts Cicadas In the Media

I posted on the 13th of June (see below) that I met up with Doug Fraser and Steve Heaslip of the Cape Cod Times. Doug wrote a nice article. "For Love of a Cicada Bug." Thanks Doug!