The 17-year cicada, or magicicada is shown above in two stages. The photo at the top shows remnant shells and directly above some are exiting their casings and other fully formed and climbing.
© Suburban Journals of Chicago Inc. photos
The 17 Year Batch of Magicicada Is Preferring Certain Regions
Around Oak Park, but They Really Like River Forest.
report by Ed Vincent
There are some 1500 different spieces of Cicada living today in the world. There are 100 spieces just within the United States.
Cicadas like the warm climate and only the males sing. Their song from one male can reach 106 decibels (equal to a lawnmower). When you gather a group of males the sound can be deafening. Many areas of Oak Park have not heard or seen a one of these prime number buddies, while others have been forced indoors to flee the chorus of clear-winged, red-eyed, flying food breeders. These insects are popular to eat in many of the more primitive areas of the world and have lots of protein in their bodies. They have a breeding cycle of 17 years and some have a 13 year time period, these are both prime numbers and that helps them survive. The main predators of these noisy
little critters are praying mantises and the well known, helicop- ter -sized cicada killer wasps. Neither of these two predators can
synchronize their population growths with the magicicada due
to the prime number effect in their reproductive cycle. Fun
math....
The more common cicada is the Annual cicada, Tibicen linnei,
which is often a little larger and green with black eyes instead
of the red variety appearing now.
They are all right to eat, for me primative food is Mc Donalds
not singing lawnmowers.
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Insecta
Order: Hemiptera
Suborder: Auchenorrhyncha
Infraorder: Cicadomorpha
Superfamily: Cicadoidea
Family: Cicadidae
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Insecta
Order: Hemiptera
Suborder: Auchenorrhyncha
Infraorder: Cicadomorpha
Superfamily: Cicadoidea
Family: Cicadidae
Magicicada nymphs, casings, dead, and some struggling for a new life.
© Suburban Journals of Chicago Inc. photo
Wedding Consumation for two Beautiful Magicicadas.
© Suburban Journals of Chicago Inc. photo
© Suburban Journals of Chicago
published by Suburban Journals of Chicago Inc.
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