It's reached the cicada invasion phase that every time I go outside one either hits me in the head or lands on me. And i just found a cicada wing on the bed. Probably from one Watson was munching on... #Cicadas
"Stranger than science fiction." That's how an ecologist describes a strange fungus that hijacks cicadas’ bodies and behavior, turning them into "zombies."
CNN reports on the the fungus Massospora cicadina and how it's impacting some of the cicadas emerging this year: https://flip.it/cxfw5K
#Cicadas rising: A visual guide to #2024’s rare dual appearance
The cicadas are coming. This year is unique, because there are two #broods that are arriving at the same time in the midwestern and southeastern #UnitedStates. Usually it’s just one at a time. CNN has a visual guide for where the cicadas will be and why they’re here now. Basically, one brood emerges every 13 years and the other every 17, and there’s overlap. https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2024/04/us/periodical-cicada-2024-visual-guide-scn-dg/
After trillions of periodical cicadas emerged from years of burrowing in the U.S. last month, scientists are hoping to capitalize on the rare event by studying the effects the insects have on the food chain. Brood XIII and Brood XIX are loudly buzzing across America together for the first time since 1803, making 2024 a year of plentiful food for for snakes, spiders, birds, and even some mammals. But what happens when this all-you-can-eat buffet doesn’t come back next year? The BBC has more.
Rescued a periodical cicada friend from a parking lot today, and another one from a busy path at Duke Gardens. They are smaller than the annual kind, and also quite beautiful. This one needed prompting to get it to climb onto a tree branch. The second one made me feel like a falconer, as it took off flying from my finger.
I kind of want black and bronze yarn with flecks of red now.
🧵Signs of the 17-year #cicadas are already showing up in #Elmhurst#Illinois. The city is a 25-min drive west of #Chicago and had overwhelming numbers of these cicadas in 2006 and 1989. This year, sections of the state will also be hit with a 13-year brood, an event that hasn't happened since 1803.
If you're wondering if you might be seeing them near you, this is what to look for in the soil.
On the bright side, even #Reddit mods might get their leg over this way:
"Hyper-sexual '#Zombie#Cicadas' that are infected with sexually transmitted #Fungus expected to emerge this year..."
"...Once the cicadas emerge from the ground, they molt into adults, and within a week to 10 days, the fungus causes the backside of their abdomens open up. A chalky, white plug erupts out, taking over their bodies and making their genitals fall off..."
Invaders from underground are coming in cicada-geddon. It’s the biggest bug emergence for North America in centuries.
AP reports: "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."
Brace yourselves, Illinoisans: A truly shocking number of cicadas are about to live, make sweet love, and die in a tree near you. Two broods of periodical cicadas—are slated to emerge together in central Illinois this summer. The last time that these broods swarmed aboveground together, Thomas Jefferson was president and the city of Chicago had yet to exist. https://arstechnica.com/science/2024/03/the-entire-state-of-illinois-is-going-to-be-crawling-with-cicadas/