 Russell, Kentucky I believe this to be a 17 year Periodical Cicada from brood XIV because the eyes are red whereas the annual cicada has green eyes. The cicada has just emerged from the nymph skin and is hanging on while drying its wings. I'm not an expert in identifying cicadas but this bug fascinates me because it is sort of a marker of history. I understand Periodical Cicadas belong either to 13 year or 17 year broods and periodically (!) make a spectacular appearance. Brood 14 appears in Kentucky and the surrounding eastern United States and dates back to the 1800s when they were first recorded in Indiana. The life cycle is interesting: the adults breed and the female lays eggs in slits that she makes in small tree limbs. The nymphs drop to the ground and live 17 years on tree roots. When the time comes, they wiggle to the surface and climb up on something to shed their skin and dry the body. Then the cycle begins all over again. The last time they appeared, I lived in the country and had an apple orchard. After the female makes the slits to lay eggs, the smaller tree branches often break and hang dead from the tree, being sort of a natural pruning effect. My small orchard had visible damage but nothing lasting. More interesting to me is being reminded of their appearance 34 years ago when I was in high school and before I could even drive a car. A friend and I had this ongoing tradition where we would skip a day of school in May to go fishing. The cicadas had made their huge appearance that May so we gathered up a large number of them and spent the school day at a pond located on a farm not far away. The ugly bugs gave us the best fishing day that I've ever had in my entire life and I still tell the story about being in awe over the number of big fish that we caught. Here's an interesting story from Indiana that tells more of the history and gives a prediction of May 20th for the appearance in that state. My photo was taken on the morning of May 15th in Kentucky, so the timeline isn't very far off. Comment (5) | Permalink |
4x6photo.com | Periodical Cicada | 16 May, 2008
