Cicadas Appearing (Years) Early On Staten Island

Cicadas, those buzzing insects that reappear every 17 years, have made an early visit to some parts of Staten Island. The Staten Island Advance reports, "Some of the obnoxiously loud insects have been seen, and heard, in Wolfe's Pond Park in Huguenot and in Great Kills backyards in recent weeks, even though the rest of what is known as Brood II isn't scheduled to arrive until 2013." An entomologist says, "This is the fifth brood where part of it is coming out early. When you have a phenomenon that is that widespread, the most likely candidate is some kind of climate-driven response." The cicadas spend 17 years underground, only emerging to mate—but when they do emerge, it's thousands, if not millions of cicadas at once. See this video from Planet Earth.

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By Jen Chung in News on June 4, 2009 2:26 PM

Comments [rss]

ed_Extinct

Very weird. They were here a few years ago in Brooklyn.

KiljoyWasHere

i, iiiii don't wanna say

try to find another way

to make it through the day without you...

r1b2

I'm with longacre. I don't know what they are, but I hear the bloody things EVERY year.

petercow99

The reason you hear them every year, is you are hearing the bro brood whose parents were around 17 years ago. Next year's bunch are still in the ground, as they have been for 16 years, and are awaiting their turn.

It's an evolutionary strategy, presumably aimed at making sure some genes get through.

iceberg

Chi-CAY-duh? Chi-CAH-duh? Seh-cada?

Can someone please iterate the accepted prononciation.

Addie

suh-CAY-duh

longacre

I've never really understood the "17 year" business. They're around every year, though usually not until it gets really hot in July and August.