The Magic of Magicadas

In the summer of 1979, my mother was walking through a local park.  As she was walking, she heard a hiss that literally made her skin crawl.  Being only five years old, her sense of curiosity got the best of her.  She slowly trekked towards the mysterious sound, until determined the source.  What she found still creeps her out to this day.  She had found a cicada. More specifically, it was a magicada, a cicada that emerges every 13 or 17 years, depending on the brood, or set of cicadas that hatch at one time.  This particular brood was Brood II, a brood that hatches every 17 years.


There are 30 known broods of periodical cicadas (magicadas).  Broods are symbolized by Roman numerals.  The broods that emerge every 17 years are Broods I-XVII.  Broods XVIII-XXX emerges every 13 years.  Although there are 30 broods named, only 15 of them have been discovered.  The other 15 broods are used for the convenience of scientists.  


Periodical cicadas are averaged sized cicadas.  They are 2.5 to 3 centimeters in length.  They are usually black with red eyes and yellowish orange stripes on their abdomen.  Their wings are translucent and have orange veins.

Magicadas are well known for their extremely long life cycle.  First, they start our as eggs.  When they hatch, they burrow underground as nymphs.  They stay immobile for the majority of their life, going through five stages of development.  The year before they emerge, they start to feed on tree roots.  Afterwards, they emerge through the burrows they used to get in.  The males and females mate, resulting in a total of 600 eggs.  Then the 13 to 17 year cycle repeats.


In 1870, Brood XXI mysteriously went extinct.  No one knows exactly what happened to them but a variety of factors could have played a role.  This is exactly why we should protect the environment- because treasures such as this brood of cicada can be lost.


http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/bugs/cicada/
http://www.magicicada.org/about/brood_pages/broods.php