BS: Cicadas - they're heeeeere!

Subject: RE: BS: Cicadas - they're heeeeere!
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 31 May 24 - 10:53 AM

Looking at the Google Doodle page it appears that the cicada doodle was presented in a very limited area.

Thanks for bringing it to our attention. Is that the 'beetles'?

Subject: RE: BS: Cicadas - they're heeeeere!
From: keberoxu
Date: 29 May 24 - 03:07 PM

Today's Google Doodle honors both broods of periodic cicadas.
It's an animated cartoon.

Subject: RE: BS: Cicadas - they're heeeeere!
From: vectis
Date: 27 May 24 - 10:49 PM

We get them every summer down here in New Zealand. Loud wee buggers.

Subject: RE: BS: Cicadas - they're heeeeere!
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 24 May 24 - 09:53 AM

Has there been any science about say, mating some of the 13 year brood with the 17 year brood
I haven't checked when those are next expected (once every 221 years?). But at the moment it's the 17 year & 19 year.

Anyway, mating 'some' with 'some' might get progeny with a different periodicity, but you would still get the same major broods coming from the rest, just with possible complications from the extra brood you've created.

Subject: RE: BS: Cicadas - they're heeeeere!
From: robomatic
Date: 23 May 24 - 04:45 PM

Has there been any science about say, mating some of the 13 year brood with the 17 year brood and seeing if the progeny fall out with one of the existing prime numbers or finds another multiple?

Subject: RE: BS: Cicadas - they're heeeeere!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 22 May 24 - 02:28 PM

There have been several iterations of a meme to be careful around trees with all of these cicadas; the idea being that copperhead snakes love to eat the bugs (several interesting photos of such appear) so they climb the trees to find them. Don't lean on trees that might have a well-camouflaged snake lurking for a meal.

Subject: RE: BS: Cicadas - they're heeeeere!
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 19 May 24 - 04:54 PM

Yes, I was even reading about it over here (Wales) they're (part of US) expecting two broods, some 17 year cycle cicadas, and some 19 year cycle.
This combination hasn't been seen since 1803
Quick double check: 17*19 = 323, 2024-323 = 1803

I'll watch the news over here. Looks interesting.

Subject: RE: BS: Cicadas - they're heeeeere!
From: keberoxu
Date: 19 May 24 - 02:00 PM

Here's the latest from the Chicago Tribune.

Subject: RE: BS: Cicadas - they're heeeeere!
From: keberoxu
Date: 18 May 24 - 09:38 AM

I'm not where the cicadas are. I'm just reading about them,
everywhere from the Weather Channel website to
the Chicago Tribune.

They are turning up in the trees now.

According to the Chicago Tribune,
the emergence in the Chicago / Northern Illinois area will be smaller
than the expected large emergence in Southern Illinois.

The state of Illinois is where two separate broods intersect
and both are emerging now.

Missouri is another state that should see many cicadas.

Subject: RE: BS: Cicadas - they're heeeeere!
From: JennieG
Date: 28 Jun 21 - 11:48 PM

I know they're not cicadas - we have cicadas here in Oz too - but my goodness, I have been reading about mayflies, or fishflies.

We don't have them in Oz.

Subject: RE: BS: Cicadas - they're heeeeere!
From: EBarnacle
Date: 28 Jun 21 - 10:33 PM

My friend Andy paddles near the confluence of the Delaware and Lehigh rivers. For several days, they were so loud they drowned out his tinnitus.

Subject: RE: BS: Cicadas - they're heeeeere!
From: keberoxu
Date: 26 Jun 21 - 04:03 PM

The reports from Baltimore, Maryland say that
the cicadas are nearly done,
above ground anyway,
for another seventeen years or so.

Subject: RE: BS: Cicadas - they're heeeeere!
From: keberoxu
Date: 12 Jun 21 - 04:55 PM

And then there is this story from the Washington Post, albeit a few days old now.

National Weather Service Radar, and the BUGS

Subject: RE: BS: Cicadas - they're heeeeere!
From: keberoxu
Date: 12 Jun 21 - 04:53 PM

I had never before heard of
Connetquot River State Park Preserve.
The river in question, I believe, is limited to Long Island,
New York City,
which is the last place that anybody expected
any Brood X Cicadas to have survived all the urban development.

But Reuters News reports that at
this State Park Preserve on Long Island,
a few cicadas showed up this summer and started singing away.

Subject: RE: BS: Cicadas - they're heeeeere!
From: Mrrzy
Date: 11 Jun 21 - 03:58 PM

For some reason we have none in Charlottesville. We did, last time. Bloody loud in the trees on the Downtown Mall.

Subject: RE: BS: Cicadas - they're heeeeere!
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 09 Jun 21 - 01:09 PM

...yes, just saw this on the BBC news - cicadas hindering Biden's take-off for Cornwall...maybe green grocers with their own agenda?!

Subject: RE: BS: Cicadas - they're heeeeere!
From: Donuel
Date: 09 Jun 21 - 08:18 AM

Planes are getting grounded due to the big bugs.

Subject: RE: BS: Cicadas - they're heeeeere!
From: keberoxu
Date: 07 Jun 21 - 08:06 PM

The Baltimore "Cicada Parade-A" looks entertaining.
The plaster-of-paris sculptures of cicadas are eighteen inches long.
People paint them any gaudy combination of colors that they please,
and plant them in public places
or on their own property, out in the open
where others can spot them.

Subject: RE: BS: Cicadas - they're heeeeere!
From: keberoxu
Date: 05 Jun 21 - 08:49 PM

One journalist account complains
that the cicadas piss from the trees whilst singing away.

Baltimore, Maryland has mounted an installation of public art
to last all summer, with cicada statues.

Subject: RE: BS: Cicadas - they're heeeeere!
From: Jack Campin
Date: 03 Jun 21 - 08:26 PM

warning from the Surrealist Food Safety Inspectorate

Subject: RE: BS: Cicadas - they're heeeeere!
From: Donuel
Date: 01 Jun 21 - 08:48 AM

Perhaps someone with perfect pitch can determine what note or notes cicacads are playing.

Subject: RE: BS: Cicadas - they're heeeeere!
From: Donuel
Date: 31 May 21 - 06:31 PM

They like prime numbers?

in the car my windshield takes out 3 ciccadas per mile. Rock creek park trail is almost solid baby toad migration today.

Subject: RE: BS: Cicadas - they're heeeeere!
From: Jack Campin
Date: 31 May 21 - 02:17 AM

Why 17 years?

Subject: RE: BS: Cicadas - they're heeeeere!
From: Donuel
Date: 30 May 21 - 07:38 PM

They are currently silent

Subject: RE: BS: Cicadas - they're heeeeere!
From: keberoxu
Date: 30 May 21 - 05:19 PM

Brood X Cicadas are getting the whipsaw treatment
from Mother Nature and the weather cycle.

The cicada / nymphs emerge only when
the ground temperature is warm enough.
We had a hot spell this May, and they started coming to the surface.
Then it got cold, really cold, again.


So there are still uncountable quantities of Brood X Cicadas
underground, in the nymph stage,
waiting -- patiently or otherwise --
for the weather to make up its mind,
and to warm up enough so that
they can come out and
go through the spectacular, reproductive phase of their life cycle.

Subject: RE: BS: Cicadas - they're heeeeere!
From: Donuel
Date: 28 May 21 - 08:14 AM

Early mornings are quiet and belongs to the birds but by 6AM the faint whirring begins in the woods and by afternoon you are engulphed in a sea of low whine. Up close a clicking faster than 30 per second can be heard. Only one made it into the house but disappeared to where only the cats know.

Subject: RE: BS: Cicadas - they're heeeeere!
From: Jack Campin
Date: 17 May 21 - 12:10 PM

The effects of psilocybin are pretty well known in US culture. The effects of cathinone aren't.

Miraa and willies

The short life is probably why it hasn't seen much use in the US. I knew a doctor who used to work in Ethiopia and took regular internal flights. You had to squeeze yourself into your seat surrounded by sacks of khat. They had to get from farm to market in 24 hours. Ethiopian Airlines did a great job. But now Americans are going to get deranged cathinone-laden cicadas flying straight into their mouths they can play too.

I can't imagine what the psilocybin/cathinone combo would be like.

Subject: RE: BS: Cicadas - they're heeeeere!
From: Donuel
Date: 17 May 21 - 08:23 AM

I have only known Jack Campin to be the sharpest cookie in the box.
Want to know about the recent no endgame Isreali war, He will tell you.
Doubt him at your own risk. I am glad psylocybin will be sprinkled all over the place. Our civilization needs it.

Subject: RE: BS: Cicadas - they're heeeeere!
From: keberoxu
Date: 16 May 21 - 03:45 PM

The claim reported by Jack Campin has attracted the attention of
the Snopes Media Group which debunks stuff that isn't true.

The article says: Fact. It's true.
There are some REALLY groan-out-loud bad jokes
begging to be crafted verbally
out of this raw material . . .

Subject: RE: BS: Cicadas - they're heeeeere!
From: Bill D
Date: 16 May 21 - 01:04 PM

Saw my first this morning... by Tuesday & Wednesday when the weather is a lot warmer, I guess there will be...ummm... more than I need.

Subject: RE: BS: Cicadas - they're heeeeere!
From: Donuel
Date: 15 May 21 - 05:59 PM

I saw my first adult baby ciccada today

Subject: RE: BS: Cicadas - they're heeeeere!
From: Jack Campin
Date: 15 May 21 - 05:50 PM

The "Atlantic" piece implies that you wouldn't need to eat a lot of terminally fungus-diseased cicadas to get smashed - on a mixture of psilocybin and cathinone, which is a combo I have never heard of being used recreationally. One effect of khat (whose active ingredient is cathinone) in high doses is spontaneous ejaculation without orgasm, something like a waking wet dream.

Some Australians use cane toad soup as a hallucinogen. Mouldering zombie cicadas aren't much of a step further. We may need to get used to seeing American guys every 17 years walking around with butterfly nets and dilated pupils looking spaced out and dripping with sperm.

Subject: RE: BS: Cicadas - they're heeeeere!
From: leeneia
Date: 15 May 21 - 05:01 PM

We are supposed to be having cicadas, but we are not. I figure they were held up in the Suez canal along with the garden gnomes.

Subject: RE: BS: Cicadas - they're heeeeere!
From: Jack Campin
Date: 15 May 21 - 06:20 AM

Tripping out while your arse falls off

Subject: RE: BS: Cicadas - they're heeeeere!
From: keberoxu
Date: 27 Apr 21 - 07:46 PM

The Washington Post offers a cicada emergence forecast.

Subject: RE: BS: Cicadas - they're heeeeere!
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 25 Mar 21 - 01:02 PM

When I majored in anthropology, a common phrase was - a possible plausible explanation.

I have also heard of a connection/communication between fungi and trees.

Subject: RE: BS: Cicadas - they're heeeeere!
From: Donuel
Date: 25 Mar 21 - 10:05 AM

Originally from planet Thera 'Sickaidass' had 17 year nights ;^/

Subject: RE: BS: Cicadas - they're heeeeere!
From: keberoxu
Date: 24 Mar 21 - 09:01 PM

The answer is, cicadas are all about trees -- deciduous trees.
When they are underground, they aren't just anyplace --
they are attached to the roots of deciduous trees.
And the trees 'tell' them about the changing seasons.

Subject: RE: BS: Cicadas - they're heeeeere!
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 22 Mar 21 - 04:07 PM

Very good, thanks, keberoxu...but how do those American ci- kah- dahs count to 17..?

Maybe they have their own alternative to yan tan tethera?!

Subject: RE: BS: Cicadas - they're heeeeere!
From: keberoxu
Date: 21 Mar 21 - 05:04 PM

Periodic cicadas,
meet
Sir David Attenborough.



He says ci- kah- dah
and
I say ci- kay- dah . . .

Subject: RE: BS: Cicadas - they're heeeeere!
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 13 Mar 21 - 03:24 PM

Growing up in Aus, as above, I used to like cicadas (as do many around the world, apparently, as I once saw a nice model of one in the Museum of Islamic Art in Doha, Qatar), but was a tad worried about them piercing my finger for sap.

Subject: RE: BS: Cicadas - they're heeeeere!
From: keberoxu
Date: 13 Mar 21 - 03:16 PM

This recent article was good enough to be reproduced and available
at Snopes dot com.

Here's the original from
The Conversation website.

Subject: RE: BS: Cicadas - they're heeeeere!
From: Donuel
Date: 13 Mar 21 - 07:24 AM

Well that put me off the notion of eating toasted ciccads like last time. With their kind of mouth parts they sound like mosquitos that prey on plants.

I worry about the resurgence of facist human ciccads hatching very hundred years.

Subject: RE: BS: Cicadas - they're heeeeere!
From: keberoxu
Date: 12 Mar 21 - 09:44 PM

This post will link to an online transcript of a
recent podcast about Brood X Cicadas.

There is hard science presented as entertainment in this podcast.
This Brood X event is not only massive, but
it is complicated by a form of amphetamine,
and a fungus which transforms cicadas into what
one scientist calls
"the flying salt shakers of death".

You have been warned.

Subject: RE: BS: Cicadas - they're heeeeere!
From: keberoxu
Date: 27 Jan 21 - 08:56 PM

The birdies will NOT go hungry this year
once the seventeen-year cicadas come up for air.
But it has to get warmer first.

Subject: RE: BS: Cicadas - they're heeeeere!
From: Donuel
Date: 27 Jan 21 - 06:08 AM

In the south textbooks called the civil war The War of Northern Aggression

Cicadas are cute with their red eyes and screams like a girl
compared to Murder Hornets

Subject: RE: BS: Cicadas - they're heeeeere!
From: keberoxu
Date: 26 Jan 21 - 02:28 PM

The maps at this site
used to be on a site with a different name I believe.
Now it's part of a university website, for the US.

Worth comparing this more specific Brood X map with
the little map in the Newsweek article.

I note that periodic sightings of Brood X
are thick, right on top of the Mason-Dixon line
that used to separate Confederacy from Grand Old Republic
in the War Between the States, by whatever name you call it.

Also that once as far south as Tennessee or North Carolina,
the sightings are in the Appalachian Mountains
and well away from the coast/shoreline.

But look at the Atlantic shoreline further north:
the DelMarVa peninsula,
much of New Jersey,
and Long Island
can anticipate Brood X cicadas.

And what gives with
southern Indiana??

Subject: RE: BS: Cicadas - they're heeeeere!
From: keberoxu
Date: 25 Jan 21 - 07:04 PM

This spring, it's going to be
Brood X, according to this feature article in Newsweek (includes a map).

Looks like east of the Mississippi river.

Subject: RE: BS: Cicadas - they're heeeeere!
From: keberoxu
Date: 31 May 20 - 05:41 PM

The 17-year Brood XI cicadas
may have been widespread once; after all,
in areas of the US that have been thoroughly deforested and plowed,
with everything from harvesting to building and urbanizing,
underground broods of cicadas have been literally uprooted.

This particular brood, what's left of it,
on the map looks like the mountains -- Appalachian Mountains.

Map of Brood IX (you have to scroll down)

Subject: RE: BS: Cicadas - they're heeeeere!
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 30 May 20 - 01:31 PM

Visiting my family in Sydney each of the last few years, the sound of cicadas has been much lower than when I grew up there - walking down the backyard of the family's 1/4 acre block, I'd often see several black princes on the euacalypts or, more rarely, green grocers or double drummers...