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CICADA
Cicadas are one of the most interesting, most studied insects. They live longer than any other insect in North America, most having a 17-year life cycle. At the end of the cycle, they emerge and fly by the millions as noisy adults. They are found throughout the eastern United States and exist nowhere else in the world. Many people confuse them with locusts—even the early Colonists thought they were a locust plague.
There are actually 30 different “broods” of cicadas, some have a 13-year life cycle and are mainly found in the south, while most have a 17-year life cycle and are mainly found in the north—but there is much overlap to their distribution. In Pennsylvania, all are of the 17-year variety. Adults are 1 ½ inches long, and the clear wings have pronounced veins. Both the eyes and veins are reddish. Another type, the Dog-day cicada, is larger, black, and the wing veins are greenish. They appear every year in late summer.
The adults are poor flyers, and after emerging the males start their constant “singing”. The females are silent. They do not feed on leaves, but may suck plant sap from young twigs and sprouts. Most of the damage they do comes from the egg-laying process. The female will slit twigs to make her deposit, and the damaged twigs will lose their leaves and eventually die and break off. Damage to orchards can be considerable. Also, birds are greatly attracted to cicada outbreaks, feeding ravenously on the insects.
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