So, I said earlier that the cicada hatching this year wasn’t going to be an onslaught, and now I must amend that because, damn.
First off, the hatchings solely on this property have exceeded expectations, and I’ve spent several nights out there documenting the events – it’s been dozens of individuals, easily, centered on three distinct areas. One of which was an old maple tree that had actually been removed something like seven years ago, but sprouted new saplings from the trunk, and my guess is the cicadas were still feeding on the active roots. There’s a region out front, though, that I can’t really fathom what tree they were feeding from, but they definitely sprouted up in the front garden.
So with this opportunity so close at hand, I was attempting to capture a few distinct things, and one of which was their actual emergence from the ground. I made multiple attempts over several evenings, sweeping all the leaves free from the soil and even setting up a worklight to illuminate the ground at a low angle so any movement should show clear shadows, but found absolutely nothing, even when new emergents were climbing the fence right alongside me. I have given up on that for now, unsure what I’m missing.
The next task that I set for myself was obtaining a positive ID of the species, which has proved harder than imagined. You can see the huge difference in coloration, and this is only between newly molted versus developed, hardened adults. Many of the 13 and 17 year cicadas look almost identical, and while I was able to narrow it down to only the 13-year species (Brood XIX,) getting beyond that has been tricky. There are two specific characteristics that help tell them apart, which is an orange band between eye and wing root…
… seen here quite clearly, and then, the color of the belly scales…
… and this is the part that’s inconclusive. BugGuide.net has been a lot of help in this regard, specifically in providing a link to a video that helps tell them apart. One species has orange belly scales, and the other has orange-and-black-striped belly scales – neither of which looks quite like this. You will note that both of those specimens are from Durham County, which is right here, and from 2011 – thirteen years ago. So it appears both species are emerging simultaneously.
[The image above is definitely a female, however – that’s the ovipositor visible in the center.]
The key, though, has been the song, which started only today, and it’s completely unreal – the description of a “UFO landing” gives a pretty good impression, even though all we really have are movie ideas of what this should sound like, shamelessly copied off one another. But given that song, I have to say these are Riley’s 13 year cicadas (Magicicada tredecim.) It was off in the distance here, but much more distinct when I went over to pick up something about 30 kilometers off, where they were being positively inundated by them.
This was one of many such bushes and trees, and the cicadas littered the ground and parking lot, easy to simply snag one; that specimen had less of the dark banding than mine, but the call was the same as this area, so I’m sticking with Magicicada tredecim. The ground in places, by the way, was liberally pocked with their emergence holes, and some lines of those could be made out, likely following tree roots.
One thing I’ve noticed about this species that’s quite different from the annuals has been their preference for molting positions. While the annuals seem to prefer just being vertical on tree trunks, this species often tries to go out branches to the ends, and/or hang upside down to molt.
Several specimens, emerged from the ground but not molted yet, were seen going to the tops of the fence posts, waving their forelegs in the air in an apparent (and vain) search for branches, then turning around and heading back down again. They’re also remarkably clumsy, falling frequently (especially on the trips back down) – I could be standing out there watching for them to emerge from the ground and hear, every five minutes or so, another one hit the leaves as they lost their grip. They wasted a lot of energy between these. And they’re easy to spot in flight since they have a rusty-hue to the wings, but much slower and clumsier than the annual cicadas in flight as well.
We’ll do a couple of closeups.
This is with the reversed 28-105, my extreme macro lens, and shows their three simple eyes quite well, and two antennae of course – this is full frame. Let’s see a bit at full resolution:
Because I can, of course. And that’s really a lot of damn eyes (technically, ommatidia.)
And with all that, the attrition rate is noticeable too, though exactly how high it might be can’t be determined – this is why some species produce gobs of young at a time, of course.
This was on the crossmemeber of the fence by the busiest hatching spot, while directly below was this:
I initially believed these were remains of the same individual, but three compound eyes can be found, indicating that they’re at least two cicadas. Given their positions so close together, I’m favoring them falling victim to the mice in the area.
[Immediately after this I found the copperhead, only a few meters away.]
And as threatening as this looks, I think the cicada was safe – certainly nothing happened in the hour that I was out there for this session. The green treefrog (Dryophytes cinereus) knew its limits.
There are a few more things I would like to get, and perhaps I’ll arrange a time-lapse video of the molting, which will take some setting up – tomorrow, I’m aiming to capture those eerie songs. But yeah, it’s been a busy season. And I have to note that, I believe on the previous emergence 13 years ago, I was helping someone about 20 kilometers away and witnessed a mass emergence, kicking myself because I didn’t have my camera with me – at that point, I had never watched the molting taking place nor seen so many cicadas at once. So now I’m making up for that, with their own offspring. Cool.