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ambience: cicadas
When colonists in the New World saw swarms of flying insects appearing without warning, they thought they were experiencing a biblical plague of locusts. Well, it turns out that these were cicadas, not locusts, and this summer across the country, many of us witnessed the emergence of a brood of cicadas. They appeared right on schedule, after a 17-year absence. I’m Jim Metzner, and this is the Pulse of the Planet.
“The insect itself is a beautiful animal – dark black body, bright red eyes, and orange membranous wings. There is no other insect that looks like this. The animal itself will be about an inch and a half long. They can fly rapidly. And this will be the only insect that we’ll see in incredible numbers like this.”
Dr. Mike Raupp is professor of Entomology at the University of Maryland.
“There are about 1500 species of cicada worldwide. They are found on all the major continents. The thing that makes this so unique is North America is only place that has periodical cicadas- they are only found in North America.”
“Most species of cicadas are annual cicadas, and this means they take anywhere from 2 to 8 years to develop underground. However, each year, there are some that will emerge, that’s why we call them annual cicadas. Periodical cicadas only emerge in cycles of either 17 years or 13 years, and they emerge in what we call ‘broods’. The brood that emerges this year is the biggest brood on the planet – it’s called Brood 10 – or Brood X. This one is distributed from northern New Jersey, south to Georgia and west of Mississippi River.”
We’ve been listening to the sounds of Brood 10, recorded when they emerged just a few months back. We’ll hear more about cicadas in future programs.
Pulse of the Planet is presented by the National Science Foundation. I’m Jim Metzner.
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