17-Year Cicadas Will Overrun The East Coast Any Day Now

Business insider ^ | 5/28//13 | Ma nature

[central_va]

The noise these critters make sounds like a cheap 50's space ship sound effect.

[Buckeye McFrog]

“Billions of bite-sized snacks are about to appear in your backyard.”

Hallelujah! That bedtime prayer request for Cheetos to start falling out of the skies from when I was 7 is finally being answered!

[USMCPOP]

Interesting perspective about the food source. Makes sense. There’s an area in India right next to Burma (OK, Myanmar) where a certain kind of Bamboo only goes to seed once in a blue moon. Bamboo rats suddenly multiply like crazy and nature puts on a show.

[GreenAccord]

I’ve seen that show (Nova on PBS?) about that phenomenon.

[CatherineofAragon]

"I wonder if the recent cold snap killed a bunch of them."

If only!

We're surrounded by woods, and it's a constant sound of Star Trek phasers set on high. I don't like bugs.

[KarlInOhio]

I was having a conversation with my teenage daughter who, in typical low-information-biology-education fashion, thought the impending cicadas plague was a once-in-a-lifetime event.

It is once in a lifetime... for the cicadas.

I didn't have many in my neighborhood when brood XIV hit in 2008, but just a few miles away it was a cicada summer of love.

[FreedomPoster]

I lived in DC VA ‘burbs as a kid and we got Brood X big time in 1970. I enjoyed launching them as a payload in Estes model rockets.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Periodical_cicada#Broods

[USMCPOP]

A similar feeding frenzy has been observed in stores the day after Thanksgiving.

[Carriage Hill]

They’re deafening here in York, PA, already. I see the casings all over the tree trunks and branches, but haven’t seen any flying, yet.

[stuartcr]

If you are 16 or under, it is a once in a lifetime event

[central_va]

Have you noticed the fall cicadas are chirping now too. It's like they are confused by the 17 yr kind's racket.

I just saw a squirrel eat 2 of them, he likes.

[dragonblustar]

You’ll never get that sound out of your brain.......

[central_va]

There are going to be some seriously fat squirrels around here.

[dragonblustar]

There are going to be some seriously fat squirrels around here.

Don't tell Huckabee.

[EQAndyBuzz]

It’s fun watching the birds take their fill.

It’s like the movie where the school of thousands of fish gather and then the sharks show up.

[central_va]

I have this small/medium sized spider and a couple are in his web, he doesn’t really know what to do with something so large.

[Gay State Conservative]

I remember about 30 years ago there was a “gypsy moth” infestation in the Northeast and in my area the trees were absolutely denuded of leaves by July 1st.I remember walking home at night from the train station (I worked 4PM-Midnight) and hearing them chewing on the leaves.Spooky.

[central_va]

Cardinal family is gorging themselves right now.

[CatherineofAragon]

You know, my husband mentioned that.

We’re probably going to see animals waddling around with bellies about to burst from the cicada buffet (ugh).

[RegulatorCountry]

There’s been a 50’s B-movie sci-fi flying saucer hovering over my house for about a week now.

Must have some sort of cloaking device, because I just can’t see the dang thing, lol.

[Revelation 911]

the same thing happened to us about 20 yrs ago at our camp in NY - you could hear and see the poop rain down on everything - quite gross