Lew Kingsley, a retired arborist, sounded apprehensive after learning millions of cicadas are due to burst from the earth this spring.
These bugs have been underground since Bill Clinton was in the White House and are a species that appears once every 17 years to reproduce and die. Their parents surfaced in the Lower Hudson Valley in 1996.
“Oh boy, they’re pretty devastating. I can remember climbing, (clearing) power lines. They were all over the trees then and they would go on you,” recalled Kingsley, who lives in Philipstown.
Known as Magicicada septendecim, the insects are among at least 15 cycles or “broods” of periodical cicadas that show up every 13 or 17 years, depending on the species. When it is their time, the broods climb out of the ground, where they have been sucking fluids from tree roots. Within three months, their offspring will head back beneath the surface.
Their emergence is separate from the annual cicadas that provide the soundtrack to hot and humid summer days.
This is forecast to be the biggest inundation of Magicicada since Brood X — the Roman numeral, not the letter — emerged in 2004.
Beyond the “ick” factor, Magicicada aren’t a threat to humans and are a minor hazard to trees, experts said.
Amy Albam, a senior horticulturist with Cornell Cooperative Extension of Rockland County, said she remembered the periodical cicadas being “everywhere” in 1996.
“They do emerge in very large numbers,” she said. “For people who are somewhat phobic of insects, it’s a big deal. They’re a nuisance insect.”
The adults’ orange legs, red eyes and clear wings with orange veins make them a standout among their cousins: katydids, crickets and other cicadas.
“These guys are not camouflaged. Others (cicadas) are greenish,” said Cole Gilbert, an entomology professor at Cornell University. “They’re slow fliers. Their principal defense is to satiate the predators (with their numbers).”
Exactly when and where they will crawl forth is a bit of a mystery. Their journey won’t kick off until the ground reaches 64 degrees and will happen at night. Their arrival won’t blanket an area but will be spotty depending on tree cover and other factors.
This particular group, known as Brood II, is expected to pop out of the ground from North Carolina to Connecticut, with the insects emerging earlier in the South. They should be in New York City by May, according to researchers.
They leave their tiny burrows as wingless nymphs before climbing a vertical surface such as a tree trunk or plant stalk, and transforming to flying adulthood. Surfacing at night may help them avoid predators and, because of the dark’s relative higher humidity, more easily shed their crunchy, plastic-like exoskeletons, said John Cooley, a research
scientist at the University of Connecticut.
The immature cicadas burrowed into the ground 17 years ago, so some now could be permanently entombed beneath parking lots, sidewalks or other development.
“I’m expecting a significant emergence in New Jersey north of the Raritan River, in Staten Island, and in counties along the Hudson River,” said Dan Mozgai, a New Jersey resident who started http://www.cicadamania.com after his friends’ 1996 wedding included dozens of uninvited guests.
State documents from the early 20th century tell of Brood II swarms in Suffern and elsewhere.
“The insect was also reported as occurring by (the) millions at New Rochelle and in the Pelhams,” according to the state entomologist’s 1911 report.
Only male cicadas sing, producing the familiar buzzing noise by contracting certain muscles in a bid to attract a female. Magicicada’s large numbers can produce an overwhelming chorus, a performance still among Dean Fausel’s childhood memories.
“You would go into the woods behind our house and it was deafening,” said Fausel, who has worked at the Greenburgh Nature Center for more than 30 years.
Female cicadas dig into small twigs to lay their eggs within about four weeks of their emergence. Their actions can damage young orchard or nursery trees by cutting off the food supply to the branch tip. Mature trees can weather the intrusion.
New nymphs will hatch later in the summer and return to the ground for their long wait. The nymphs born this year will emerge in 2030.
Deputy Westchester County Parks Commissioner Peter Tartaglia said some of his staff didn’t remember 1996 being a big cicada year in the county.
Kingsley, in Philipstown, though, plans to cover his fruit trees to keep off egg-laying cicadas. He said the young cicadas 17 years ago came “firing right out of the ground” on their way to adulthood. His two boys, about 5 and 7 then, were delighted.
“They’d have the racquets out and play badminton with them,” he said.
