Cicadas’ sound and the wasp that kills them
After the Big Brood buzz bites the dust, and newspapers stop carrying cicada recipes — grilled, stir- fried and chocolate- covered — their high whining trill will still sound over the landscape.
Billions of periodic cicadas — Brood X — have hatched as far south as Georgia and as far west as Michigan this year after living underground for 17 years. It’s a natural phenomenon deserving of national press.
But every year, other cicadas hatch out, in cycles unstudied. We don’t see them — they fly from their ground nests to the fullfoliage heights of trees before we get a glimpse.
But we hear them once the hot weather sets in in July and August. They sing — if singing be the word — during the day emitting a sound that’s been described as akin to a chainsaw or a dentist’s drill.
“They’ll be starting in about two weeks,” said John Cooley, professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Connecticut and a cicada tracker.
“I hear them in my yard and at the nature center,” said Frank Dye, professor emeritus of biology at Western Connecticut State University in Danbury and the driving force behind the university’s 33- acre Nature Preserve at its Westside campus. “It’s pretty distinctive.”
Hatching at the same time is the cicadas’ great nemesis — the cicada- killing wasp. While cicadas sing, female wasps go on the hunt. It’s a brutal struggle and a gruesome death for the cicadas.
A hornet’s sting paralyzes the cicada victim. Then, the mother wasp drags the paralyzed cicada to her underground lair. Stashed there, still alive, it’s food for newly- hatched baby wasps who devour it over time.
“It’s awesome,” said Laura Saucier, a wildlife biologist at the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection. “It’s like science fiction. I love it.”
Ken Elkins, community conservation manager for Audubon Connecticut once saw this cicada- wasp death struggle up close when hunter and prey fell near his feet at Milford Point.
“The wasp must have stung the cicada at least six times in the head.” Elkins said. “It was one of the most intense natural interactions I’ve ever seen and I’ve seen rattlesnakes hunting rabbits.”
Cicada- killing wasps are also big enough that people confused them with Asian Giant hornet — the socalled murder hornet — that showed up on the West Coast in 2020.
Gail Ridge, an entomologist with the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station in New Haven, said several people called the station to report them, only to learn what they’d seen murders only bugs.
“I would say their reaction was a mix of disappointment and relief,” Ridge said.
Cicadas of all species follow the same pattern. They mature underground then emerge to mate.
The males are the noisemakers. They have a structure under their bodies unique to cicadas called a tymbal — two hardened membranes. They flex the tymbal with specialized muscles to create a clicking sound. When flexed very rapidly, clicks become trills. Because much of the rest of the cicadas’ bodies are largely hollow — think mandolin — the sound resonates and gets loud.
The males perch on tree limbs and sing. The females listen silently, evaluate and choose a mate. Once they do the deed, the females lay their eggs in trees. When they mature enough, the cicada nymphs fall to the ground, burrow underground and live there, feeding off roots until their time in the summer sun occurs.
There are several cicada species living in the state including a 17- year periodic cicada that hatched in 2013 and is due to reappear in 2030.
There are also dog- day cicadas — Neotibicen canicularis — so called because they show up in the dog days of summer.
Ridge, of the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station, said dog- day cicadas hatch on a three- year cycle. But because there are three broods, there’s always one that emerges and sings.
“It’s leap- frogging,” she said.
But there are other species — some that sing at dawn, others at midday, and others at dusk. One, the one — Megatibicen auletes, the northern dusksinging cicada — is the largest cicada in North America.
UConn’s Cooley said no one is sure of how long each species lives underground before emerging. Some might have a threeyear cycle, some only one.
Nor do we pay a lot of attention to them until a 17- year periodic cicada tidal wave materializes.
“Most cicadas go up tall trees and we never see them,” Cooley said. “That’s opposed to the 17- year cicadas. Then, they’re everywhere.”