The Cicada's are coming...a looming mother nature cycle that is due to happen any day now. Eww...I'm really not looking forward to this. Truly, it is a wonder of nature and how all living things work. These locust-like bugs have been burrowing in the ground for 17 years now and are on their way to above ground, shedding their shells( let's get naked!) feeding off the trees, which help the trees stay healthy somehow, mating ( yea, sex!) and laying their eggs which make their way back to the ground. It also gives the birds and other creatures something to eat and those who don't get eaten die anyway. Weird, huh?
So how do they know when the 17 year mark is here? Who sets the alarm? What do they do in a leap year? Does that throw their timing off? Are they hibernating all that time? Do they have a life underground? Is this a slow larvae-to-bug growth process that takes the full 17 years? How do they survive in the ground that long? Do any of them get claustrophobic? So many questions...such an odd process...
I do agree that it is pretty cool, however I am not looking forward to having a bunch of bugs flying around in my yard hanging out in the trees making that 'whrring' noise and dropping dead all over the place leaving the way from my car to my door a 'crunchy footpath". EWWW!! I have this bloated vision of an Alfred Hitchcock film about the coming of the cicadas. Swarms and swarms of bugs buzzing around landing on my shoulders as I make a mad dash to my car for safety with a tennis racket in hand to defend myself, bugs shells all over the ground, birds pecking away at these 'things' as they suck the marrow out of the trees, bugs eggs peppering the ground as they try to burrow for the next 17 years, bugs accidentally flying into the house with the cats hunting this new and bizarre prey and then puking up the half of the bug that they did eat and leaving the other half still alive twitching on my floor...it just gives me the heebie jeebies... I just know that my yard is going to be one of those yards who get these damn things. I swear I saw one earlier today on my steps as I was taking out my Goodwill stuff to the car....ewww!!! I wish I could afford to go to the beach for a couple of weeks once they pop up out of the ground. I'd much rather hear the sound of the ocean for a couple of weeks. Wouldn't you? Feeling buggy...elizinashe
P.S. EEWWW!!!!
1 comment:
Like you I find Cicadas a marvel ... an annoying one at that! Ours aren't 17-year hibernaters, however. I live in Iowa where we have a seven-year variety. When I lived in Missouri we had a 12-year sleeper.
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