First of all it took me a few years to figure out that what I, a Mid-Atlantic native, knew as âcicadasâ were not what everyone else knew as cicadas. What most places on Earth know as âcicadasâ look like this:
whereas what I know as cicadas are these:
This is Magicicada septendecim, the 17-year periodical cicada. Many places have summer cicadas in moderation every year, but here on the North American Eastern Seaboard we save them all up for one MONSTER horde that only appears every 17 years. There are multiple broods of cicadas, so really a handful hatch every year, but the big one is BROOD X. Technically that means âBrood 10âł because cicada broods are labeled with Roman numerals, but BROOD X sounds much cooler and also evokes the right amount of batshit weirdness that occurs, because what occurs is the largest insect emergence in the world. Donât take my word for it, take David Attenboroughâs:
When May comes in a cicada year, the cicadas. Are. EVERYWHERE. I mean every. where. Literal billions - possibly a trillion - of these big ole bugs dig their way up through every inch of soil on the East Coast, climb up the nearest object, then split their shells and spread new-grown wings to the first sun theyâve seen in almost two decades.
And then they probably get eaten. 17-year cicadas use a survival strategy called âpredator satiationâ which literally means âthey canât eat us all.â Cicadas are a) huge b) dumb and c) defenseless, so to a predator they might as well be flying Snickers bars. But there are so many goddamn cicadas that no reasonable number of predators can eat them all. We think thatâs why they converge on prime-number lifecycles - there are also 13-year periodical cicadas - because that way predators canât line up shorter periodical lifecycles to take advantage of the cicada boom.
So how are people not losing their shit when billions of bugs invade? Well, some do. But to make up for their frightening numbers, cicadas are so non-threatening they might as well have been designed by Disney. Plump, clumsy, and googly-eyed, these idiots donât bite, donât sting, canât poison you, and donât eat your plants. They donât even fight each other - males join up rather than compete. Cicadas lack the survival instinct god gave a literal gnat and wonât so much as flinch at a humanâs approach. You can pick one up off a leaf, hold it in your hand, play with it, put it in your little sisterâs hair, whatever. Hell, they can barely fly; itâs more of a prolonged, hopeful lunge in the right direction. The worst they can do is careen into you midflight, possibly with a comical âbonkâ sound, and flop to the ground hilariously. They are bad at everything.
Except for one thing: YELL. Cicadas are here because it is Yelling Time. Now is the Time To Yell and by god thatâs what theyâre going to do and dear lord are they good at it. In a cicada year their atmospheric background hum quickly ramps up from âanime foleyâ to âneighbor mowing their lawnâ to âdrowning out a jet aircraft.â Every piece of greenery becomes an auditory hazard generating noise in proportion to its size. Got a big hedge? Now you have THE LOUDEST HEDGE. Beautiful shade tree in the front yard? Canopy of YELL, with a side order of cronch as you step on discarded chrysalises, dead cicadas, and live ones that are too stupid to move. And given that theyâre about the thickness of a finger, stepping on one can be a gruesome experience. Donât walk around barefoot, is what Iâm saying.
Thus for a few glorious weeks every seventeenth May the outdoors is ruled by screaming idiot bugs flapping around without a care in the world. The Yell functions as the worldâs loudest matchmaking service to help the cicadas steadily pair off and mate. Then the females buzz away to lay their eggs on tree branches, the males probably get eaten now that theyâve served their purpose, and the shouting hedges gradually go quiet. The silent epilogue plays out a couple months later when the eggs hatch and the translucent white nymphs drop from the branches to burrow into soil and sleep, sipping from tree roots and catching up on their Netflix queue, for another 17 years.Â
In conclusion, hereâs Sir David Attenborough catfishing a cicada:
Fly free, you beautiful dumbasses. Fly free.
