17-year cicada

Hannon writes:

I enjoyed your entry on cicadas. I am with you, their buzzing call is enchanting and makes me think of tropical forests. Their intensity matches the heat spells and thunder from summer storms. When I lived in St. Louis of course they were a regular feature of the season, but they seem not to be urban insects in California.

Have you ever seen a cicada killer? It is a solitary wasp, not unlike a yellowjacket but impressively larger.

When I am an old man I hope I remember the bit about the noise-making of the deaf!

Laura writes:

My condolences if you do not live with cicadas, also sometimes known as locusts although they are not really locusts.  I imagine the sound is deafening in the tropics. This is something Monsieur Fabre did not explore: whether cicadas have ever lessened the hearing ability of human beings. Some cicadas produce sounds of up to 120 decibels, according to this article. Modern science has discarded Fabre’s theory and insists the insects do hear.

I forgot to acknowledge how hideous cicadas are. The beautiful emerald-based wings of the “dog-day cicadas” common to this part of North America do not make up for the repulsive cigar-shaped body, the white tuxedo-shirt underbody, the eyes on top and alongside the heads, and the dangly legs. These cicadas do not come down to the ground much once they have wings, preferring to remain in the trees, and so it is possible to ignore their looks. If they were half the size, they would be much less ugly. It’s not their fault.

Cicadas spend most of their lives underground as nymphs, sometimes a foot below the surface where they gorge themselves on root juices. They emerge for a short time as winged adults to mate and suck the sap from trees. Those species belonging to the appropriately-named genus Magicicada live underground for 13 to 17 years and appear in especially large numbers.

I was staying one time along the Hudson River near Rhinebeck, N.Y. when the famous 17-year cicadas emerged. They did not remain in the trees. The town was overtaken with them, as if an invasion of miniature helicopters had descended. You could hear their wings whirring everywhere and it would have been no surprise if people were snatched from their houses and carted into the air by these enormous flying insects. I attended a Victorian tea at an old mansion overlooking the river. A cicada the size of a small sparrow flew down my blouse. I will never forget the moment when I realized it. I had no choice. I ripped off my shirt.

I have seen the cicada killer wasp prowling in my garden. I did not know what it was when I first saw it, assuming with no scientific basis it was a human killer wasp. I later looked up cicada killers and there it was.

Rose writes:

Don’t feel bad [about the Victorian tea]. It can’t be as embarrassing as taking a shower at your grandmother’s, noticing a spider in the stall, and running naked and screaming into the hallway. Which, uh, happened to someone I read about. 

Laura writes:

Fortunately, I was in a remote part of the garden. No one noticed.