The Accidental Entomologist

In 1990, shortly after my family moved to Chicago for the first time, I was introduced to the Midwestern delight of the 17-year cicada. To commemorate this potentially once-in-a-lifetime experience, we have a picture of my dad and I standing in our front yard, which is literally carpeted in the bugs, and the expression on my 7 year-old face is clearly letting Mom (behind the camera) & Dad (stage left) know that when the cicadas have dispatched them and sucked out their juices, I am going to live with my real parents. 17 years later, with a keen sense of timing and skills equivalent to those of a bluejay that flies into the same window over and over again, I managed to coordinate my second move to Chicago just in time for the Next Coming.

For any of you who haven’t managed to be in the greater Chicagoland area between late May and early July of 1939, 1956, 1973, 1990, or 2007, allow me to explain the phenomenon that is The Periodical Cicada.

Basically, these are bugs that have a longer life span than your average goat. The cicada youth are called “nymphs,” a word which has apparently expanded from the classical definition of “beautiful maidens dwelling in the mountains, forests, trees, and waters” to include enormous pre-pubescent insects. These nymphs hibernate underground for the first 16 years and 10 months of their lives, emerging from the soil in late May of their 17th year (possibly upon realizing that they are now eligible to drive in the U.S.) Once topside, the nymphs undergo their final molt, littering the terrain with peapod-like shells and revealing that they are in fact albino. The other bugs’ vicious teasing drives the cicadas to scamper up the nearest tree, where they cling for several days while their exoskeletons harden and darken to a nice normal brown color. The cicadas’ eyes remain red to secure their supporting role on Fear Factor.

So many of these creatures emerge over a 1-2 week period that they pretty much cover the entire surface area of certain Chicago suburbs. Then the mating ritual begins. The males produce their mating call using structures in their abdomen called tymbals, and after 17 years of celibacy the competition for a mate can be pretty fierce. You can imagine the scene in the locker room: “My exoskeleton is harder than yours” and “Check out the tymbals on that guy!”

After slapping each other on the thorax and crushing a few deciduous rootlets on their heads, the males begin to collectively belt out a chorus that can reach up to 96 decibels (the equivalent of a low jet fly-by). This obviously makes the females come a-running. So drunk on love are they that both males and females proceed to fly into anything that moves. Or doesn’t. In fact, you can basically dropkick these things and they won’t even bat a beady red eye, thanks to those exoskeletons. Simultaneous with the mating symphony, the molted shells that are still covering the ground from the initial emergence begin to decompose and produce a smell that has been unanimously classified by entomologists as “dirty diaper.”

At this point, many Chicagoans do the sensible thing: They eat the cicadas. That’s right, cicadas are a delicacy in many cultures! But really, who wouldn’t want to eat a gigantic winged insect that has been marinating in pesticides and fertilizer since before the fall of the Soviet Union? Apparently the cicada has a nutty flavor and, if harvested at the right time, its texture is similar to the soft shell crab. You can batter them, fry them, serve them as appetizers, put them on pizzas, or bake them into yummy desserts. [For more info, see wheresmycicadaball.com. And don’t even bother coming back here.] But watch out – for those of you with shellfish allergies, cicadas may cause a flare-up as well. One website also warns cicada snackers to “be wary if you are prone to the gout.”

A handful of Chicago merchants have taken the cicadamania still farther, coming up with the truly brilliant idea of using the giant bugs as a marketing ploy. Walter E. Smithe Furniture is having their “Cicada Sale” which boasts such ingenious taglines as “Miss it and wait another 17 years!” and “Escape the noise and save a bundle!” The TV commercial features 3 men with their heads superimposed on cicada bodies, singing about their low prices to the tune of “You Might Think” by the Cars. Other, less inventive products include “I Heart Cicada” t-shirts, key chains, and of course cookbooks.

By late June, most of the adult cicadas will have gone to that great piece of tree bark in the sky, but not without leaving their spawn behind. Females can lay up to 600 eggs apiece, ensuring the continuation of their species for another 17 years. (But don’t worry, their long life cycle means that periodical cicadas escape natural population control and can achieve astounding densities as high as 1.5 million per acre! No need for that endangered classification just yet.) The eggs incubate for a month or so until late July or early August, when they hatch, pour down from the trees like raindrops, and burrow underground until 2024.

Right about the time I move into my treehouse in Elmhurst.

My tymbals are bigger than yours.