'Magicicada' expected to show up some time in June
(Published Sunday, April 15, 2007 11:35:20 PM CST)
A d v e r t i s e m e n t
By Ann Marie Ames/Janesville Gazette
Life's hard enough when you have bulging red eyes and patchy orange skin.
But when you only get one chance every 17 years to get a girlfriend, things can get ugly.
One insect has evolved around its dating problems, and parts of Walworth, Kenosha and Racine counties will see the effects this June.
For two million years, one family of the "magicicada" species of cicadas has hatched every 17 years like clockwork in parts of eastern Iowa, southern Wisconsin and northern Illinois.
"It's a fun thing for anybody if you like insects," said UW Extension etymologist Phil Pelletier. "Some states are blessed with more than one species of periodic cicada. We only get one."
Fifteen families of periodic cicadas are native to eastern North America.
Wisconsin's only periodic cicada is the Brood XIII, Pelletteri said. This cicada likes old, wooded areas where the ground is undisturbed. Its territory centers around Chicago, he said, but he expects a good crop of the bug in Lake Geneva this summer.
Pelletteri has heard reports of 17-year cicadas near Janesville, Richmond and Wyalusing State Park near Prairie du Chien, but the reports are spotty, he said.
The species hatches infrequently and in large numbers to keep mating adults from falling victim to predators such as birds or mice, Pelletteri said. The 17-year cicada hatches in numbers 100 times greater than the common "dog day" cicada heard every July and August in southern Wisconsin.
"I've seen as many as eight or nine (17-year cicadas) per square foot," Pelletteri said.
The dog day cicada has a two- to three-year life cycle, Pelletteri said, but new adults hatch every summer, lending their screechy, buzzing mating call to Wisconsin summer days.
Periodic cicadas are larger and more colorful than their dog day cousins. Their life cycles are similar, aside from the length of time between hatchings and the time of year they hatch.
To see photos and hear mating calls of cicadas, visit the University of Michigan Web site at www.umich.edu and search for "cicadas."
In the summertime, mature cicadas emerge from the soil, shed their skins and begin searching the trees for a mate. One female lays up to 600 eggs on a twig where the eggs mature for up to 10 weeks.
Adult cicadas live no more than six weeks.
Cicadas "nymphs" fall from the mature eggs and burrow into the ground. The nymphs, which are two- to three millimeters long, attach to a tree root and grow for years.
Two to 17 years later-depending on the species-adult cicadas emerge and the cycle begins again. Adult cicadas do not eat crops and are not poisonous.
George Hennerley remembers the last hatching in the summer of 1990.
"They're huge," said Hennerley, executive director of the Lake Geneva Chamber of Commerce. "You could see them flying all over the place. They're kind of a creepy-looking thing."
Pellitteri remembers, too. But he's not creeped out.
"About the 20th of June, I'll be in Lake Geneva with my camera," he said.
