So I found out through my mother, and then checking the internet for its accuracy, that the so-called "17-Year Locust" is coming back this year (though not really a locust). I am not looking forward to this at all. First off, I hate insects!! These little bastards will be around from late May through July (about 4-6 weeks all together). They're the loudest insect in existence. On the bright side, they're harmless and carry no diseases. I do, however, recall memories of them ruining a camping trip to "Lake Red Hall" when I was younger.

They're also supposed to be tasty I guess, several different countries (in the continents of South America, Africa, and Austrailia.. and probably Asia) eat the insects. There's something in them which can also be used in medicine.

These little bastards stay underground for 17 years, in an egg (basically), come out after that time, climb up trees, break out of their exoskeleton, and fly around, managing to reproduce like rabbits.

Maybe I would feel a little less threatened by this topic if my parents wouldn't have moved to the FREAKIN' WOODS WHERE THERE WILL BE THOUSANDS FLYING AROUND!!!

Anyway... any thoughts?


It's in attack mode!




This man did not live to see this picture be developed!

Cicada Survey single choice
	They're cute
	They're fascinating
	They're annoying
	They're disgusting
	They're terrifying
Votes accepted starting: 04/14/07 01:40 AM You must vote before you can view the results of this poll.

I had to make the man's picture that size, he was literally a giant!

I like its eyeballs.

No way has it been 17 years. I'm 20, and remember the cicadas when I was in middle school.

Are they regional or something?

There are some broods (groups of them) that come every 13 years.

I had to re-size the picture so that it'd fit on my screen!

13, 17 years...I hate these fuckers.

Really, their corpses surrounded the city swimming pool when I was a kid...by the hundreds it felt.

My brother gets cicada-eating wasps every time the cicadas come. If you think that cicadas are huge, you should see these wasps. They literally carry the cicadas away and feed them to their young. They are frightening in size, but they don't bother with people. They are only after the cicadas.

Well, I think they're damn sexy.

I remember when we had them here back in the mid 90's. It just so happened that we decided to have a picnic that year for our annual youth hockey league, not knowing when we planned it that it was going to be the year of the cicadas! They were all over the place. It was disgusting.

I still can't see how this is the year they are to come back.....I was probably 10 or 11 the last time it happened, its only been maybe 12 years at the most, no way 17.

Does it happen everywhere at the same time?

Thanks, S.C. for fixing the photo.

I guess they're just hitting the midwest area. Sorry for the false alarm to those on the coasts, you can sleep now that you are safe.

Which brings me to my next point, sense you're in the safe zone, can I sleep on your floor Geoff? I'll bring a sleeping bag!

If I remember right I think them bugs were here a few years ago.

I was about 7 when I had a few as pets for a week. I let them go and my father said they'd return in 13 years. I'm still waiting...

I used to find cicada shells all the time as a kid. I'd find them on trees, the side of my house. I used to crush them with my hands or stomp them with my feet because I liked the sound it made.

You Bathturd!*

*=Bobby Lashley's way of saying bastard, you dumb bathturd!

I think it may be a regional thing because we just had them 3 years ago here in cincinnati.

http://archive.cinweekly.com/content/2004/05/05/0505CoverStory_Main.asp

there are some recipes if anyone wants to make cicada chocolate chip coookies.

Crunchy!

Thanks Don Alessandrio.

Does anyone here actually have eaten insects?

In Harrisburg, PA we have the mayflies. Our minor league baseball stadium is built on a pretty good size island in the middle of the Susquehanna. At ball games starting in early May, hundreds of thousands of these moth-like insects emerge from the river on the day of their birth, and at dusk they start enveloping the stadium lights for sevral minutes before they drop dead.

Spectators for night games always know to wear hats, so that they don't feel the dead insects dropping on their heads. But these bugs are born in the morning, mate, leave their eggs in the river and die by nightfall.

A few years ago, the team moved their night games to 6:05 PM, so that the games would finish before the mayflies fall. Actually, it's not that bad once you get used to them.

Anyway, scientists from Penn State have studied them and have indicated that the fact that they thrive every year indicates that the water in the river is very clean, so I guess we should be thankful for that.

Klydon, thats insane. Whats your ballteam's classification anyway?

I can see the fan chants.

"Drop Dead" THUD THUD "Drop Dead!" THUD THUD

When I was four, I ate a few ants out of a jack-o-lantern, about ten days after Halloween. I was informed they tasted like Reese's peanutbutter cups.

I can't say it was 100% misinformation, to be honest.

Double A, Eastern League. Affiliated with the Nationals. The team is called the Senators, but many think they should be named in honor of the Mayfly.

Awesome. I hope they become the Flies or MayFlies someday.

Besides, Senators is a bad-luck name. Just ask the last two franchises in Washington that carried the name.

Exactly. Many people think that since the return of minor league baseball in Harrisburg in 1987, the name Senators is a reference to the city being the capital of PA, but it was so named because in the 1910s and 20s Harrisburg was an affiliate of the Wash. Senators.

Anyway, back to bugs.

It may be a short life, but what a life it is

Kly - same thing happens up river by Wilkes-Barre. You come out in the morning and your car is covered with the Mayflies.

Many years ago I was working on Long Island for Ma Bell. There was a town - Island Park that was experiencing the Locust hatch. It was very distracting to be climbing a pole and have these things flying around and sometimes crashing into you. Yech!

Bob Dylan wrote a song: The Day of the Locust. The chorus goes....
"and the Locust sang
yeah it give me a thrill,
and the locust such a sweet melody,
yeah the locust sang with their high-whining trill,
yeah the locust sang and they were singing for me."