Sickening Cicadas

The cicadas are coming! The cicadas are coming!

“When I was a kid, I took their shells from trees and then ran up to people and stuck the shells on their backs,” Chandra said at work last week.

“They shed their shells?” responded Jill. “I’m scared. The more I hear about this, the worse it gets.”

“It’s all so gross,” added Jessica. “I’m just gonna be a shut-in for six weeks.”

That conversation took place when a bunch of us discussed the upcoming invasion of cicadas (pronounced si-KAY-duhs), which has to rank high on the list of strangest phenomenons in God’s grand plan. In early May – only a couple weeks from now – my Nashville-area neighborhood and all of Middle Tennessee will be inundated by millions of nasty, sticky, flying cicada insects that are 2-3 inches long with large eyes wide apart on their heads, and transparent, multi-veined wings.

Every 13 Years? Seriously?

Perhaps the strangest aspect of these locust/grasshopper-looking creatures is that they only appear every 13 years, with the last monstrous swarm having visited Middle Tennessee in 1998.

“Cicadas emerge from the ground every 13 years in May, and come out by the millions,” says Dr. Frank Hale, a University of Tennessee entomologist. “This year’s invasion will feature the biggest cicadas ever to appear in Middle Tennessee. They will mate and the females will lay eggs in tree branches, then the adults ultimately return back into the ground until May 2024.”

2024? Is this bizarre or what?

Freaks Out Dogs and Cats

I vaguely remember the swarm of 1998, when people really couldn’t walk outside without getting hit in the head by several of the crazed menaces. I, myself, recall walking along a sidewalk and crunching many of them under my shoes. All flying male cicadas emit a loud, buzzing sound that Dr. Hale says can reach 120 decibels at close range. That’s where their name comes from – cicada means “buzzer” in Latin.

Just to be even nastier, cicadas leave behind a dry shell after they mate, so we’ll soon be seeing millions of discarded dead parts as well. Plus frenzied flying cicadas can get tangled in people’s hair, so some of the insects might inadvertently be brought into homes and workplaces.

“The insects are harmless to humans – they don’t bite or sting,” Hale says. “It’s just that hordes of them are everywhere for six weeks. They’re loud, eerie-looking, they freak out dogs and cats and they are a nightmare for some people, but then they leave our sight.”

Happy Eating

I read that cicadas also appear every 13 years in northern China, and the insects there are actually skewered, deep fried or stir fried and then eaten as a delicacy. I mention this because here in Middle Tennessee, there will soon be so many swarms buzzing around that many of us are destined to have a cicada or two fly into our mouths.

Please, God, don’t let that happen to me.