Word: cicada
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They're not locusts (which are a type of grasshopper), but for much of the Eastern U.S. this year, they're certainly a plague. Some cicadas appear almost every year, but the Brood X periodical cicada, as scientists call this variety , is the big one: the world's largest insect swarm. For the next five weeks, sidewalks will be littered with crunchy brown shells, ant treetops will be buzzing with an ear-splitting screech...
...Cicadas look scary with their vaguely devil-shaped heads, but they're really harmless, and some communities even look forward to their arrival. Cincinnati, Ohio, for example, is planning cicada festivals, parties and even meals. Gene Kritsky, a cicada expert, is testing out a new recipe this year, cicada chowder. But entomologist John Cooley, who studies cicadas at the University of Connecticut, won't touch it. "Seventeen years underground just to end up as someone's dinner?" he says. "They're too marvelous to waste...
Compared with the average bug, which goes from birth to death in less than a year, the 17-year cicada is Methuselah: it has the longest life cycle of any known insect. In all, there are twelve distinct broods of 17-year cicadas, each of which emerges in a different year. This year's group is referred to by scientists as Brood 10. The other large group, Brood 14, is due to make its next appearance...
...long sojourn underground, subsisting on sap in tree rootlets, the cicada nymph passes through five growth stages, or instars, each of which ends with the insect throwing off its carapace. About two months before it is ready to emerge, the nymph tunnels its way upward, lying at the surface and building a protective earthen turret if the ground is too damp. This final rest stop is truly character building: it apparently enables the insect to develop adult claws and flight muscles to help it cope with life aboveground. "Their bodies undergo a major transformation, especially of muscle structure," says Miller...
...final hours of the cicada's three-week life aboveground are played out as the female deposits hundreds of eggs in a series of pockets cut in twigs. Nine weeks later the microscopic nymphs hatch, drop to the ground and burrow down as far as 2 ft., where they grow, eat and await their coming-out 17 years hence. The fact that this brood will not reappear until 2004 is one reason scientists are reluctant to put too much of their time into unlocking the cicada's secrets. As Richard Froeschner, a research entomologist at the Smithsonian Institution, points...