The 17-Year Itch Brood X reappears, with clues to cicada
behavior By Tabitha M. Powledge
Quoted message said:From late May through June, Brood X of the periodical
cicadas will emerge
from the ground, having spent the past 17 years as nymphs
feeding off tree roots. After digging their way out and
molting into adults, billions of the big, clumsy, red-eyed
insects will sing their earsplitting love songs. Last seen
in 1987, the brood will provide a prodigious if brief feast
for birds, along with an incomparable opportunity for
researchers. Fascinated naturalists have been writing about
periodical cicadas for four centuries. But much remains
unknown about the insects' periods or what triggers their
synchronized appearances.
Brood X is perhaps the largest and best studied of the
approximately 15 broods of periodical cicadas (researchers
dispute the exact number). A brood emerges somewhere east
of the Great Plains almost every spring. Worldwide,
investigators have identified some 3,000 cicada species but
know the life cycle for only a dozen or so. William
Bradford, governor of the Plymouth Colony, first described
periodical cicadas in 1633, although Native Americans
probably knew of the creatures before then. The 17-year
life cycle was firmly established less than a century
later; by the mid-19th century, naturalists had recognized
13-year cicadas.
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Posted by Robert Karl Stonjek.