Big Nature, 2024

The year 2024 has been a notable nature year in several ways. Sure, there were some significant tornado, flooding, and other severe-weather events (some part of Missouri gets those every year); but if you lived in any of the places affected, it was definitely a year of “big nature” for you.

And we had an exceptionally mild spring, which is something, and by fall, most of the state was in some level of flat-out drought. (Which affected fall color in our state.)

In October, the drought stress caused our lilacs to bloom even as our green ash tree turned yellow. It was a really odd sight.

But I want to talk about much bigger nature. Like, once-in-a-lifetime nature. Like, there was that amazingly beautiful total solar eclipse in April (I still need to blog about it). Of course, I didn't even try to take pictures of it, but I sure soaked in the time and place—the way the event felt, and how unique it looked—sunny but shady, at once.

And there was that solar storm that ignited aurorae visible exceptionally far-south in May and October. If you got to see that, or get photographs of what you wished you could see with your bare eyes, then bully for you!

But let’s not forget the coolest nature thing that happened in eastern North America: the coincidental emergence of two big periodical cicada broods the same year! It was Broods XIII (17-year) and XIX (13-year). Realize, every “normal” periodical cicada emergence is an amazement in itself. That these insects can live 13 or 17 years below ground, sucking juices from tree roots, then somehow all emerge within the space of a few weeks, the same year, like clockwork, is a staggeringly cool example of big nature.

The last time the two broods emerged the same year was in 1803, the year the Louisiana Purchase was signed!

As of 2024, there appeared to be nowhere that the two broods overlapped, so it was a geeky thing to geek out over. It’s not like there were twice as many cicadas in most places (indeed, cicadas generally decline thanks to habitat disruption, and climate change is affecting them, too).

So it’s a mathematical convergence. When one thing happens every 13 years, and another thing happens every 17 years, it’s rare when they synch up.

So, when will the two broods emerge during the same summer again? How do you figure that out? Well, here you go: 13 x 17 = 221, and 2024 + 221 = 2245. The year 2245!!

What will the year 2245 be like? None of us alive today will see it . . . but Star Trek at least has offered some suggestions. According to Star Trek, 2245 is the year, on April 11, of the launch of the USS Enterprise, NCC-1701 (yes, THAT Enterprise!). Its first captain will be Robert April (who appears in later Star Trek series, including Strange New Worlds). James T. Kirk will take the captain’s chair in 2265.

It’s also the launch year of the Enterprise’s sister starships, the USS Cayuga (NCC-1557), later destroyed by the Gorn, and the USS Constellation (NCC-1017), under Captain Matthew Decker; both are destroyed by the Bugles-shaped planet killer in a memorable Original Series episode, “The Doomsday Machine.”

Star Trek canon also has it that 2245 is the year that Pavel Chekov will be born, and it’s the year that Leonard McCoy will decide to pursue a career in medicine.

I love it that these musings for 2024 have started with astronomical phenomena—the solar eclipse, the aurorae—then took a dive underground to consider the years our cicadas lived in soil, then fast-forwarded to the Star Trek universe. Science can predict, even project natural events: solar cycles, solar and lunar eclipses, and cicada emergences. And what do you think 2245 will be like?

Cicadas: What’s Up With Their Eyes?

It’s just uncanny how insects seem to be looking right at you. No matter how you turn them, and from no matter what angle you look at them, they always seem to be looking right at you.

Right

at

you!

So, what’s up with their eyes? I mean, we “know” they’re compound eyes and that they are quite different from our own. Our eyes are basically a clear-jelly-filled ball, with sensors (retina) at the back, a lens-covered, expandable aperture (pupil) in the front, and muscles that rotate it (so we don’t always have to turn our head in order to look around).

But their eyes are quite different. They are fixed; they don’t rotate. So why does that dark spot on their big, buggy eyes seem to follow around, so it’s always looking at the viewer?

Wet or dry . . . they always are looking at you.

Even while they’re molting!

How does this work? It’s caused by the structure of their compound eyes. It’s essentially a result of tubes, shadows, and mirrors. To understand this, imagine a model: Think of their globe-shaped compound eyes as a cluster of narrow tubes, all pointing outward from a center point, and imagine these tubes are coated, on the inside surfaces, with silver. Closest to you, the tubes are pointed directly at you, and you can see into the whole long (dark) tunnel (you’re not seeing much of the silver), while the tubes increasingly angled away from you appear light-colored, reflecting the light.

That’s basically it: you are looking at a spherical cluster of tubes.

And it’s not just with cicadas; many insects have compound eyes that have this property.

Like this common meadow katydid.

Like this little baby, gray short-horned grasshopper. So cute, sitting on a leaf in his prairie.

And like this pretty green planthopper.

The next question is, why does this seem so freaky to us?

We humans—with our social nature, our interdependence, our allies and enemies, our capacities for trust and for deceit—have evolved to be masters at evaluating each other. We look carefully at one another’s eyes. You can tell so much about someone by their eyes! Yes, “the eyes have it.”

This is why those professional poker players so often wear mirrored sunglasses—they want to conceal their thoughts and feelings. (Why shouldn’t that be considered cheating?)

It’s why people who have eye-alignment problems have a real social disadvantage, because crossed eyes or other misalignments are stereotyped as a sign of severe developmental disability, or head injury, of being dazed or semiconscious.

It’s why silent movie actors wore such heavy eye makeup.

And so we, in our anthropomorphization of insects, can’t help but look into their eyes, too, and try to read their expressions. And what we get back is an unblinking stare, perpetually fixed upon us. Does it freak us out?

Maybe it should. Insects depend on us to not ruin the world for them. They need elbow room. They depend on the existence of their many native food plants; they depend on the habitats—prairies, woodlands, glades, wetlands—that support their various food plants. They need plenty of plants and habitat, because the usual existence strategy for insects is to create a bazillion eggs and offspring, most of which won’t make it to adulthood. On some scale, they need room, like cicadas, to have a bloom, a heyday, and then have a majority eaten by countless predators, and then return to the soil.

So yes, they depend on us.

If you feel stared at, it’s not surprising.

Do things to preserve and increase native habitats.

And vote for the environment.

The above text explaining the dark dot in insect compound eyes is loosely edited from a page I wrote for MDC’s online field guide, Mantids (Mantises). Mantises, of course, are one of the many insects with compound eyes that exhibit this phenomenon.

Tiny Cicada Monument

The periodical cicadas of Brood XIX are starting to wind down around here. I believe there are just as many deceased cicadas on the ground and sidewalks than there are up in the trees.

Plus, we’ve had a slight snap of cool, rainy weather, and that hasn’t done them any good.

(Oh, it’s going to seem so quiet!)

It makes me rather sad to see the light go out in all that vibrant, buzzing, busy life. Even their eyes lose that brilliant red hue and turn dull brown when they die.




And the “haters” naturally use this as an occasion for even deeper disgust, complaining that the dead cicadas “smell bad.” Well? Look at it this way: They don’t smell nearly as bad as you would if your carcass was lying on a hot sidewalk!




But there is a kind of funky wet-dog smell to their bodies when they collect in a mass, especially after a rain. Ah, well.




The last time Sue and I were in San Francisco, we visited a shop in Chinatown that specialized in brush painting and calligraphy—both the artwork and the supplies. In addition to selling (and personalizing) chops (those carved stone stamps that Chinese artists use as seals, to sign their works), they sold miscellaneous other small stone carvings.






Being a fan of cicadas, I couldn’t resist picking up this little object. If you look at it with a certain miniaturized perspective, it’s kind of like an insect-sized monument to Brood XIX.




Well, I’m gonna miss them; seems like they just got started! I’m glad we took a lot of pictures!

Cicada Brood XIX: Generations

I’ve always been fascinated by cicadas. (Okay, I like all kinds of critters!)

You could measure the passage of time by cicadas, the way Indians measure time in “moons.” It’s kind of like when Halley’s Comet visits—only the cicada periods are much closer together, so that we can experience more than just one emergence in a lifetime.




For instance, thirteen years ago it was 1998, and we were living in Columbia; behind our duplex was an empty field that was surrounded by the trees that line Hinkson Creek and one of its tributaries.

The waves of cicada sound whirled in repeating circles around that ring of trees. We sat on our patio, drank beers, and marveled at the sound. It was hypnotic, almost tantric. It was a truly awesome experience. (Ah, my beer-drinkin’ days . . . Oh, well.)

Hmmm . . . minus another thirteen years . . . it was May 1985 when we had the thrill of meeting the grandparents of this year’s cicadas. I’d just finished my first year of college! I was distracted quite a bit that spring—trumpeting in a summer orchestra and going out on dates a lot, if memory serves!




But I recall it being a hot spring, and the cicadas being rather messy, especially toward the end. One of my friends, in particular, complained bitterly, but I was thrilled by the cicadas’ vast numbers.




Back another thirteen years, and I was six, just finishing kindergarten at Blue Ridge Elementary. I vividly remember the morning Mom and I noticed them clambering out of the earth in our backyard and dragging themselves across the grass (kind of how newborn opossums grapple through their mother’s fur from birth canal to pouch). We watched them creep up the bark of trees.

And there, we watched them push, then pull themselves from their shells and emerge as pearly white, newborn adults!

I had great patience; I watched the whole molting process over and over again. (And I still never get tired of it.)

I’m so grateful my mom isn’t the sissy-girl type—never once did she go “Ew! Yukky bugs! Don’t touch!”

She and my dad encouraged me to treat them with respect, to watch, to touch them gently.

They taught me never to harass them while they were molting or while their wings were hardening. We talked about them, and I learned. I even put some in a bug container and brought them to show Mrs. Terry and the rest of my class!




How many more times will I be able to witness this phenomenon? My dad told me a few days ago that he was wondering if he would get to see the periodical cicadas again—a rather sobering thought. It has inspired him to appreciate this mass emergence all the more.

And what will any of us be doing in 2024, or 2037? I’ll be lucky if I live to see them in 2050. (And, while we’re at it, who knows what the future holds for them? Cicada broods have been known to go extinct.)




Heck; who knows what the future holds within just the next thirteen years—? About anything?

At any rate, by the end of June, the periodical cicadas will all be gone, so we’d better experience—enjoy—glory in!—this wonderful miracle of nature while we can. Eh?

Wheeeeeeet~~!





There’s lots of fun stuff online about periodical cicadas. To learn more about these amazing little animals, start with the Cicadamania website, where they’re tracking Brood XIX (the thirteen-year cicadas we have around here), sponsoring contests for finding cicadas with white eyes, selling mugs and tee-shirts, and generally having a grand time! I know you’ll like it! (There’s even a “Cicada Wedding Planner” for those anticipating a “big fat cicada wedding”!)

---

Special thanks for Susan Ferber for supplying the lovely photos in this post. I took the picture of the deceased cicadas; my parents took the picture of me in the sycamore. And I don't know who took the picture of the MOSSPAC orchestra of 1985--sorry I cropped out the violins. Hah--can you find me in that picture?


Bonus fun: Thirteen years ago I discovered that you can press cicada wings and glue them onto pages just as you can leaves. Here's a page from my 1998 journal! (Naturally, these wings came from already-dead cicadas!)

Periodical Cicadas: Big Nature

It’s a matter of scale, I think, that marks the difference between natural phenomena that are overlooked, and those that demand the attention of us all. At least, this is the case with the periodical cicadas, in the genus Magicicada. The whole region’s “abuzz” with them.

“Buzzing,” by the way, does not come close to describing the sound, for the sounds they make vary—an individual cicada, for instance (depending on the species) might make a quick series of “tics” before producing a single swooping, widening rasp. The quality is similar to the raspy “peent” of a nighthawk. (Click here for the call of Magicicada tredecassini.)

When the cicadas first started to emerge this year, these individual sounds reminded me of a neighbor starting up his weed-whacker, which often makes a repeated choking sound before it “catches” into a full, expansive, whining whirr.




But as I write this, the cicadas are at high tide, swarming in the trees everywhere, and the males are literally chorusing. They synchronize, like thousands of humans in a sports stadium doing “the wave”—and waves are what it sounds like. Crescendo, decrescendo, crescendo, decrescendo—over, and over, and over, incessantly. All day long.

When they’re en masse like this, the sound is completely different, and the quality also varies depending on where you are. Hearing them from inside the house, it’s like the hiss of a running faucet (minus any sound of splashing water). Or it sounds like thousands of small rainsticks, upended dramatically, over and over again, never allowed to go silent.

But if you’re outside, surrounded by them, it can give you a headache. Kind of like a chorus of circular saws, or vacuum cleaners, or leaf-blowers. They’re loud!

And consider this: It’s only the males making this sound; the females, except for the clicking of their wings, are silent. Thus, you should multiply your perception by two to have an idea of the actual density of these little critters!




It’s like having an ocean in your backyard, a constantly pounding surf. This is “big nature”; you can’t ignore it. Now, you can go about your daily life scarcely aware of the colony of paper wasps building a nest high up on your gable, or Madame Woodchuck chewing grasses along a drainage ditch as you drive home, or even that chipper cardinal whistling outside your window each morning.

But you cannot ignore the periodical cicadas when they’re enjoying their few precious, necessary weeks aboveground.




Their swarms are on the order of supercell thunderstorms, floods, red tides, and avalanches. It’s a phenomenon you’re forced to notice.




However, unlike a lot of those major natural events, the mass emergence of cicadas doesn’t require you to get very concerned (unless you own a tree farm and failed to plan for the predictable emergence of cicadas). Why? Because the only damage cicadas do is to branch tips. In fact, you could think of them as a natural pruning mechanism for trees.

They cannot sting you, for they have no stingers. They are not poisonous (in fact, you can eat them; many people in this world do). They don’t have the ability to bite you, either (although it’s possible that they might accidentally poke you with their strawlike mouthparts—a simple mistake on their part—hold still long enough, and a cicada perched on you might suspect you’re a tree). Overall, cicadas are about as harmless and inoffensive as an insect can be. Please let your children play (gently) with them!




I have to admit, it saddens me to think that many people—even educated people, even some of my friends!—say they hate cicadas. I guess this dislike arises from their numbers, their noise, their assertive presence. Or maybe because they pee tiny clear raindrops on our cars for a month.




And they do remind us that we mammals are vastly outnumbered by the insects. If you’re insecure about that fact, the cicadas could indeed bother you.

But I think the miracle of periodical cicadas vastly outweighs any temporary inconvenience. They really are thirteen years old! As with other cicadas, a great majority of their lives is spent underground, where they use their strawlike mouths to tap juices from plant roots. They’re not “incubating” down there; they are simply young—it takes them thirteen years to grow from the size of a tiny ant to the “cicada shells” you see attached to trees.




In other words, during their subterranean years, they are moving, eating, breathing, living creatures; they’re simply not yet winged, sexually mature adults. (Ahem: There are other animals on this planet that don’t become sexually mature until their teenage years, too. And drinking sweet fluids is a favorite activity of theirs, as well!)

I contend it’s a virtue to conquer one’s groundless, prejudicial phobias against God’s beloved creatures, great and small.




(And if that’s not enough reason to think they’re cool, think about all the silly, prissy people you don’t like whose lives are being “all ruined” by cicadas! Hah! Chalk one up for the little guys!)