Cicadas misidentified; they’re just stragglers
In the Tuesday, May 5, News & Record, it appears that someone misidentified the cicada in the photo taken at Cascade Park.
Thousands of these critters appeared in our yard this weekend, and I sent a couple of photos to a cicada researcher at the University of Connecticut. She said they are almost definitely a periodic variety of cicada.
The dog-day cicada that you mention does not emerge until later in the summer and is not black with red eyes like the ones that emerged in the Cascade Park/Forest Valley area last weekend.
The researcher, Chris Simon, went on to say, “It is not rare for periodical cicadas to emerge in off-years. These odd emergers are called stragglers.”
Tens of thousands of stragglers generally appear four years prior to a 17-year cicada emergence. Four years from now would be 2013. That would be Brood II. Brood II occurs in North Carolina in Rockingham, Guilford, Stokes and Yadkin counties and possibly others nearby. I have seen Brood II in these localities myself.
Another expert on cicadas, Dan at cicadamania.com, said, “Looks like they are Brood II accelerated four years, or Brood XIX accelerated two years.”
Thought you might want to know.
Tommy Joseph
Greensboro
Comments (2)
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Look closer, they're aborted Mexicans.
Posted on May 9, 2009 6:03 AM
The world ends in Dec. 2012 anyway. The brood II brood get to sleep through the whole thing.
Posted on May 9, 2009 8:44 AM