Cicada Factoid

If you live in Missouri, Illinois, Tennessee, Arkansas or several other mid-south states, no doubt you've heard the cicadas this spring.  This year we are blessed with the 13 year Great Southern Brood Cicadas.  While you may find their mating call annoying, they do have a couple of positive aspects.  Right now it's a virtual all-you-can-eat smorgasbord for birds and other critters that can feed on the cicadas.  And some experts say they may be as thick as a million cicadas per acre in some forests.  As the bugs mature and die, they'll provide the equivalent of about a pound of fertilizer per square yard over the forest floor.

I've perused the Internet searching for interesting facts about the periodical cicadas and here is some of what I found:

This year (2011) the Great Southern Brood is out across some 14 states.

Overall, there are some 30 broods of 13 year and 17 year cicadas.  The 17 year broods are located further north than their 13 year counterparts.  The last time the cicadas were here, both the 13 and 17 year varieties appeared in 1998.  So while this year we have the 13 year cicadas, the 17 year cicadas will return in 2015.

They are sometimes called locusts, although they are not in that genus, but are cicadas.  They pose no major threat to vegetation although laying their eggs may damage some young trees.

They don't bite or sting, but they do have what look like barbs on their legs so they can be uncomfortable on sensitive skin.  They aren't attracted to humans, although they may be thick enough to collide with you at some point.  (They aren't attacking you).

Their life cycle is something like this:  They emerge as nymphs from the soil where they've lived for 13 years feeding on plant roots.  The white, adult nymphs shed their exoskeleton after about 6 days and as black and red adult cicadas live for about 5 weeks.  During that time they mate and produce eggs.  The eggs will hatch nymphs and the nymphs will burrow into the ground where they'll stay for the next 13 years, only to emerge and start the cycle again.

Experts don't know why mother nature chose 13 year and 17 year cycles, and why (for example) there are no 5 or 15 year cicadas.


Cicadas have been eaten in China, Malaysia, Burma, Latin America, Germany, the Congo and in the United States. In North China, cicadas are skewered, deep fried or stir fried as a delicacy. Sparky's, a local ice-cream shop in Columbia, MO, began serving Cicada ice-cream in 2011.  Yum-yum!  (NOT)

So enjoy one of nature's many wonders while they're here.  They'll be gone by mid to late July and this particular variety won't be around again until 2024.

So it goes.