Good Natured: Periodical Cicadas
In just a few weeks, one of the year's biggest natural phenomena will occur right here in northern Illinois.
You've probably already heard about it, as media outlets started publicizing the event already in January. It's been covered in broadcast and print media as well well as all the socials--Facebook, YouTube, TikTok…you get the picture.
But one place I guarantee you haven't seen it—yet—is right here. Because even though the dual emergence of periodical cicada Broods XIII and XIX is right around the corner, I refuse to let myself get too excited. Which I'd imagine might come as a surprise to you. I know it surprised me!
Perhaps a little background is in order.
First of all, periodical cicadas differ from the annual cicadas we see each summer in how they look, how they behave, and how long they live. Then, within the periodical realm, there are further differences. Some species have a 13-year life cycle, while others are underground for 17 years.
The 13-year species are primarily southern in occurrence and the 17-year species mainly occur in the “North," which in reality isn't much farther up than, say, Milwaukee. These huge groups are yet again divided into broods--regional groupings of species that share a common emergence schedule.
The reason this year has been deemed so unusual is that both Brood XIII, a 17-year group that occurs across northern Illinois, and Brood XIX, the Great Southern Brood that extends through the lower half of the state, have not emerged in the same year since 1803. Illinois wasn't even a state back then!
Now you don't have to be a geography guru to recognize that northern Illinois and southern Illinois are two distinctly different regions. Although there are a few counties forecasted to possibly have some overlap of the two broods, with Springfield cited as the intersection, the quantity of cicadas we'll see up here should be very similar to what occurred in 2007.
But before we dive into this year's arrivals, let's go back just little bit farther.
For Brood XIII's 1990 emergence I was living in Evanston, which is smack-dab in the middle of a very large periodical cicada population. I recall my neighbors being none too thrilled at the endless droning, as well as having to use a snow brush to sweep them off their cars. But for a nature nerd like me it was pure heaven. I couldn't wait to head outside each day and see the cicadas on the trees, the wooden fence, the side of our condo building.
My cocker spaniel Ellie aided and abetted my behavior, pushing to go out for walks multiple times each day so she could eat cicadas for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Our neighborhood, as far as she was concerned, was one massive shrimp cocktail, and if she didn't personally eat all the cicadas, that pesky dachshund across the alley might get some. And we certainly couldn't have that!
(Note: Today veterinarians advise against such gluttony as all those wings, legs and exoskeletons can cause blockages. Ellie survived just fine, but she also had a uniquely rugged constitution. She routinely ate things like grapes and onions with no ill effects, and lived to be just shy of 20. What a gal!)
Those millions of cicadas made such an impression that when 2007 rolled around I was positively twitchy with anticipation. By then I was working as a naturalist at Red Oak Nature Center in North Aurora and could actually track the cicadas for my job. Hot diggity!
In early spring I spent an afternoon at the Aurora Public Library, scrolling through reels of microfilm and traveling back in time to 1888—a time when cicadas were plentiful throughout the Aurora area. Those early newspaper articles mainly focused on two things: One, the insects were cicadas, not locusts and, two, they posed no harm to people or crops.
(The tendency to call cicadas locusts dates back to Colonial times, when early settlers mistook the great quantities of periodical cicadas for the plagues of locusts described in the Bible.)
In 1905, news reports were much the same, although in the intervening 17 years people had apparently forgotten that cicadas and locusts are two separate types of insects. In a piece titled Seventeen-Year Locusts Not Harmful, Dr. W. S. Moffatt, a “well-known naturalist" in Wheaton, stated, “The cleaning of forests, which are the natural homes of the insects, is gradually reducing the territory covered by several broods." He added, “It is not known that any of the broods are increasing in numbers or in extent in territory they cover, and it is probable that the race is slowly disappearing."
Hmm.
In 1922, a bold headline declared, Long Sticks to Chase Locusts from the Trees, and then went on to detail how “hundreds of persons turned out today to fight the millions of 17-year locusts which moved on the Fox river valley yesterday." The article also noted that knocking “the hoppers" from the trees was the only way to prevent the ends of twigs from dying but added “Comparatively few of the insects have been reported in Aurora."
During the next emergence, in 1939, the newspapers referred to 17-year cicadas appearing in northern Illinois, but I couldn't find any reference specific to numbers in Aurora.
You might be able to see where this is going.
When May 2007 rolled around, as reports came in describing massive amounts of cicadas in DuPage County, I walked the Red Oak woods, straining my eyes and ears for a sign—any sign at all—of the celebrated cicadas. I prowled my neighborhood in St. Charles, and hiked through Pottawatomie Park, Norris Woods and LeRoy Oakes Forest Preserve, finding maybe two dozen cicadas. Total.
The best luck I had was, interestingly enough, in downtown Geneva, smack in the middle of the Third Street shopping district. That area had several hundred, maybe a few thousand. But millions? Not a chance.
I was, to put it mildly, crushed.
Next week: We continue our exploration of periodical cicadas in eastern Kane County, and what you might expect in areas near you.
Pam Otto is the outreach ambassador for the St. Charles Park District. She can be reached at potto@stcparks.org.
