17 Year Cicadas: Call
ambience: cicadas
Recognize that noise? Well, in many regions of the country, it completely dominated the soundscape for a few weeks this past spring. I’m Jim Metzner, and this is the Pulse of the Planet.
Well, just as they do every seventeen years, a brood of cicadas emerged from their underground burrows, shed their skins, transformed into adults and flew to nearby trees, where they proceeded to mate and produce their deafening calls.
Raupp: “After the adult cicadas move into the treetops, the males will begin what we call a ‘chorusing song’ – only the males sing – and the purpose is to get members of the same species in same treetop.”
Dr. Mike Raupp is professor of Entomology at the University of Maryland. He says that different species of cicadas, with names such as septemdecems or cassinis, have different calls.
The septemdecems sound to me like a great whirring noise in the treetops – like an alien spaceship, perhaps. One of the other species cassini – sounds like castanets. And their call will rise and fall as members of the species join the chorus. These can be incredibly loud – up to 100 decibels.”
“One of the most important reasons for the calling is to get the different species in the same place. They tend to gravitate to specific areas or even specific trees. So as you ride through a neighborhood, at one location you may hear a cassini chorus that sounds like castanets or an electrical wire shorting out…where a quarter-mile down the road you’ll hear the big whirring sound of thousands of septemdecem adults up in the treetops with their chorus.”
If you missed the sounds of the cicadas this summer, this brood will be back in 17 years.
Pulse of the Planet is made presented by the National Science Foundation. I’m Jim Metzner.