Noisy Neighbors

I have always been fascinated with cicadas.  They are noisy.  You find their shells everywhere during the summer.  Kids are either "freaked out" by them or want to let them crawl on them.

Years ago in the small town in which I grew up we lived only a couple of blocks from the city park -- notice I said the city park because there was only one.  Between our house and the park were open lots across which we could look and see the small lake there.  I frequently wanted to go fishing in it since it had been stocked with channel catfish.

In our back yard we had a very large weeping willow tree and in the evening cicadas would come out of the ground in their nymph form.  I would go out with a coffee can and catch as many as I could and keep them overnight in the can.  The next morning they would be my bait.  For some reason, keeping them in the dark in the coffee can kept them from hatching out of their shells.  The catfish loved them.

I always assumed a cicada was just a cicada, but I didn't know anything about them except that they made good bait in their nymph form.  This morning I looked them up on the Internet and learned there are over 3,000 species of cicada.  They all have a similar life cycle in which they spend the majority of it underground in the nymph stage.  Some species usually spend only a year living in the earth but, others as long as 17 years.  If you want to read about them the link is here.

Can you imagine someone spending their life studying cicadas?  How in the world can you tell the difference between the different species?  "Hmmm....this one has 4 spots and a red mark, it must be a new species...."  I'm just happy to know that it is a cicada and not a locust as some call them.  A locust is actually a type of short-horned grasshopper that has a swarming phase.   I'm thankful we don't have locust swarms here.  I bet they make good bait though.