Cicadas

[lindajo]

Someone please explain the 17 year thing to me. Here in SC, I see the shells every year.....

 

[BethanyF]

Someone please explain the 17 year thing to me. Here in SC, I see the shells every year.....

There are several varieties of cicadas. Some 17 years, others 13, 10, 7, etc. Plus I think there are some that come out every year. The 17 year ones that are expected this year are the ones with the huge numbers.
ICK....we should be seeing them here in a couple weeks. And double ick...I just realized I scheduled my garage sale right in the middle of the emergence.

 

[kpgclark]

Isn't it amazing that they can count 17 years? I just think nature is cool! (but I still don't like those buggers!)

 

[DaisyDebbie]

I'm dreading this summer. I absolutely HATE them and because of that they usually find ME

 

[Briar Rose 7457]

we're not supposed to be too badly affected, Debbie.

what I'm dreading is the gypsy moth catapillars. we had some very bad infestations when I was in college. it hasn't been so bad the last few years, but who knows?

 

[kpgclark]

I grew up on Long Island and boy do I remember the gypsy moths! Our property was very wooded and my mother would give us coffee cans and have us fill them up with them for $$$. I also remember the trucks coming through the neighborhood to spray. Kids would run through the smokey stuff!

 

[Briar Rose 7457]

one year, my neighbor called the local cable news station to do a report. her white garage doors looked black becausse they were literally covered with creepy crawlies. ugh.

 

[maci]

Ok am I the only one that calls those things locust???

Or is that a texas thing? Or is that a completely different beast?? They certainly look the same and from you are describing are the same insect?

Just curious?

 

[kpgclark]

They are definitely not locusts although often mistaken for them.

 

[Briar Rose 7457]

Main Entry: lo·cust
Pronunciation: 'lO-k&st
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Latin locusta
1 : SHORT-HORNED GRASSHOPPER; especially : a migratory grasshopper often traveling in vast swarms and stripping the areas passed of all vegetation
2 : CICADA
3 a : any of various leguminous trees: as (1) : CAROB 1 (2) : BLACK LOCUST (3) : HONEY LOCUST b : the wood of a locust tree

 

[maci]

Ok I tried to look up a picture of a locust...and I think techincally they are 2 different bugs...but evidently lots of people (myself included) have been calling cicada's locust all their lives.
One website said "cicada (locust)"

Anyhoo....not important...just one of those southern slang terms like "doodle bug" and "chiggers", I guess.

 

[DemonLlama]

Odd side note -- we just finished watching an episode from the third season of CSI that referenced the cicada.

They spend all those years just to break out for about 5 months of summer flying and then die.

I've always assumed they are the same as locusts, and I love the sound they make, but I'm not crazy about encountering the actual bug.

Eric Carle's _The Very Quiet Cricket_ also has a page devoted to the cicada. I think it looks much prettier in the book!

 

[nuke]

Locusts are not cicadas. Both equally gross creatures but not the same.

From Encyclopedia.com........
locust
Related: Invertebrates

in zoology, name for certain migratory members of the short-horned grasshopper family (Acrididae). Like other members of this family, locusts have antennae shorter than their bodies, song-producing organs on the forewings and hind legs, and hind legs well developed for jumping. Locusts lay their eggs in the ground; when the nymphs hatch they are wingless and move across the land by walking. Typical locusts (e.g., species of the Old World genus Locusta ) have two distinct adult forms, a short-winged migratory form and a long-winged nonmigratory form. Locust migration is an occasional event, which follows an enormous buildup of a locust population. The young locusts, called nymphs, only develop into the migratory form under certain environmental conditions, which also lead to a population increase. Not all of the environmental factors involved are known, but one is hot weather. The first generation produced after a migration is not usually migratory.

When migration occurs the locust swarms are so dense as to blacken the sky over an area of many miles. When the insects finally settle, after traveling hundreds or thousands of miles, they begin to feed, consuming enormous quantities of vegetation. Locusts are serious agricultural pests. Spraying with solutions of arsenic and overturning the soil can destroy the eggs.

Locusts are most common in Africa and Asia, but also occur in the United States. The Rocky Mountain locust, Melanopolus spretus, destroyed millions of dollars worth of crops on the Great Plains between 1874 and 1877. A single swarm contained an estimated 124 billion insects. The species is now apparently extinct. Cicadas are sometimes called locusts in the United States but are related to aphids and leafhoppers, not grasshoppers.
Locusts are classified in the phylum Arthropoda , class Insecta, order Orthoptera, suborder Caelifera, family Acrididae.