This morning we noticed some dried cicada skins around the bottom of a tree, as well as on the trunk of the tree itself..
As we started to look closer we noticed lots of little pairs of bright orange eyes shining in the sun.
These cicadas were not yet ready to fly. They are colourless and soft when they shed their skin and gradually dry out and harden up.
These are adult periodic cicadas who have been living underground for 13-17 years.
Cicadas lay eggs in the bark of trees which hatch into small ant like creatures which dig tunnels into the earth around the roots of trees.
The nymphs attach to the roots and live on tree sap until they are ready to emerge. Once the earth warms to around 64F and preferably after rainfall they dig their way to the surface, shed their skin and start climbing into the trees.
We looked online to see that these are probably 13 year old cicadas from Brood X (broods are numbered sequentially on a ten year cycle according to the year they enter the ground). They should not be emerging until 2021 but apparently some of a brood will come to the surface early if the conditions are good. Unfortunately few of these early hatchers survive.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.