The little red-eyed critters are coming to a tree near you. They have been sleeping underground for 17 years and are ready for love. All they need is some 65 degree soil to wake them from their hibernation. If you lived in Southwest Ohio in 2004; you probably remember the invasion of Brood X, which was 5 to 7 billion strong.
The current group, Brood XIV, is expected to be 2 to 3 billion strong. Regardless, that’s a whole mess of loved starved insects. Local bug experts believe they will peak in June and vanish by early July.
In 2004, it was a truly amazing site to watch the cicadas arrive after doing their Rip Van Winkle impersonations. I can still remember seeing dark patches of the swarming uglies. There were millions of them. After being asleep for so many years, they were lonely and ready to mate. The whole city resembled a cicada nightclub on dollar beer night.
Cicadas don’t have a mouth, so there isn’t a need for an after movie dinner or any conversation. They come out of the ground chanting their unique songs with the purpose of attracting a mate. After completing their mating business, they die.
I find the cicada story interesting because people are similar. We enter the world looking for love and reproducing before we die. Like cicadas, we also use mating calls, only we call them “pickup lines.”
Cicadas are amazing, what it takes us a lifetime to accomplish, a cicada can accomplish within a week.
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