Seventeen-Year Cycle
The emergence of the cicadas marks the beginning of the last weeks of life for nature's longest-lived insects.
Six to eight weeks after a female adult cicada performs her last, dying act—excavating a nest in a young tree branch and laying her eggs—her eggs hatch and the nymphs fall to the ground.
The cicada nymphs keep heading down, first grubbing on grass roots and then tunneling about 12 inches (30 centimeters) deeper to where they feed on small tree roots for the next 17 years.
"If you dig in the right place, you can find 30 to 50 nymphs in a hole about a foot square [900 square centimeters]," said John Cooley, a cicada expert at the University of Connecticut in Storrs.
After the cicadas have counted 17 years—"we really don't know how they count the years," Kritsky said—they are ready to emerge, which usually happens in late spring when the soil reaches a temperature of about 64 Fahrenheit (18 Celsius).
When twilight of their emergence day hits, the one-inch-long (2.5-centimeter-long) nymphs crawl out of their holes and up just about anything vertical—trees, barbecues, walls, tombstones.
Firmly latched onto the surface of their choice, the nymphs begin their overnight transformation into adults: youthful skin breaks open, milky white cicada emerges, wings flush out, and the body darkens as its outer shell hardens.
This emergence also marks the beginning of a huge feast. "It's well known that pretty much everything starts chowing down on cicadas," Clay said. Dogs, cats, birds, squirrels, deer, raccoons, mice, ants, wasps, and, yes, humans make a meal of the insects.
According to Kritsky, the best time to eat a cicada is just after they break open their youthful skin. "When you eat them when they're soft and mushy, when they come out of their skin, they taste like cold, canned asparagus," he said.
Some scientists believe the mass emergence of the cicadas is part of a survival strategy. With so many of them, they collectively satiate their predators within a few days. Then the billions left uneaten are free to mate.
The business of finding a mate and reproducing is the sole purpose of the cicadas' short existence above the ground. It begins with the males flying to a sunny tree and, with thousands of their buddies, beating out a tune on their undersides.
"It's a high-energy activity, and they, much like a lizard basking in the sun, orient themselves to maximize sun exposure, which maximizes body temperature, which allows them to sing more vigorously and louder," Clay said.
When a male successfully attracts the attention of a nearby female, she will flick her wings as he finishes his song. A courtship dance ensues, with the male continuing to sing up until the physical act of copulation.
Shortly after mating, the male usually keels over and dies. The female buzzes off to excavate nests in a young twig for her 600 or so eggs. Once her egg supply is exhausted, the female dies. Six to eight weeks later, the eggs hatch and the 17-year cycle begins anew.
For more cicada news, scroll down.
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