Are Cicadas Coming to Ohio in 2021?
Are cicadas coming to Ohio in 2021? Yes, they are, and not just in Ohio! One of the largest broods of periodical cicadas in the nation, Brood X will emerge this spring in 15 states : Delaware, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, North Carolina, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, as well as Washington, D.C.
Brood X (Brood 10), the Great Eastern Brood , is one of 15 broods of periodical cicadas that appear regularly throughout the eastern United States. It has the greatest range and concentration of any of the 17-year cicadas .
Are cicadas coming to Ohio in 2021? Yup. Every 17 years, Brood X cicadas tunnel en masse to the surface of the ground, mate, lay eggs, and then die off in several weeks . The combination of long dormancy, simultaneous emergence of vast numbers, and short period before the nymphs’ burrowing underground to safety, allows the brood to survive even massive predation.
Their great numbers act as a species survival strategy—these amazing insects are funky fliers and really easy prey. But if billions of them show up, even if half-a-billion, and get eaten, there are still plenty of cicadas left over to mate and lay eggs again.
The cicadas aren’t harmful to humans and do not pose a danger to plants through feeding. The cicadas, however, can cause damage to plants through their egg-laying habits . Cicadas are not major agricultural pests, but in some outbreak years, trees may be overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of females laying their eggs in the shoots . Small trees may wilt and larger trees may lose small branches. Cicadas sometimes cause damage to ornamental shrubs and trees, mainly in the form of scarring left on tree branches where the females have laid their eggs. Branches of young trees may die as a result. Click HERE if you’d like information about protecting some of your more tender young trees.
Although only males produce the cicadas’ distinctive sounds , both sexes have membranous structures called tympana by which they detect sounds, the equivalent of having ears. Males disable their own tympana while calling, thereby preventing damage to their hearing; a necessity partly because some cicadas produce sounds up to 120 dB , which is among the loudest of all insect-produced sounds . The song is loud enough to cause permanent hearing loss in humans should the cicada be at “close range.” In contrast, some small species have songs so high in pitch that they are inaudible to humans.
Click HERE for a webpage that includes recordings of cicada sounds from all over the world, including Brood X. Pretty interesting.
For the human ear, telling precisely where a cicada song originates is often difficult. The pitch is nearly constant, the sound is continuous to the human ear, and cicadas sing in scattered groups . In addition to the mating song, many species have a distinct distress call, usually a broken and erratic sound emitted by the insect when seized or panicked. Some species also have courtship songs, generally quieter, and produced after a female has been drawn to the calling song. Males also produce encounter calls, whether in courtship or to maintain personal space within choruses.
