Tragic — and quite loud — romances are playing out in yards and forests near Richmond.
After waiting 13 years underground, big-eyed insects are emerging to sing, mate and die.
Called 13-year cicadas, these 1½-inch-long love bugs quickly make themselves known.
"It's a big, flashy insect, and it makes a lot of noise," said Eric R. Day, a Virginia Tech insect expert.
"People get kind of excited about it, and rightly so, because it's kind of a neat insect in a lot of ways."
Liberated from their earthen tombs, the males sing in a manner that has been described as sounding like weed-eaters, fire sirens and distant spaceships.
"It just goes on and on," said Roger Hall, a retiree in northern James City County. "It really gets to the point of being annoying."
In the past few days, the cicadas also have been reported in Brunswick and Mecklenburg counties, Day said. And they are expected to show up in Hanover, Dinwiddie, Prince George and Halifax counties.
The cicadas make dashing lovers, with bulbous red eyes, black bodies and orange-veined wings like racing stripes.
They are so big, Day said, that if you drive into one "it sounds like a golf ball hitting your car."
The cicadas are harmless to people, but they can damage young trees when the females cut into twigs to lay eggs. Netting can protect small trees.
After their noisy month or so aboveground, the adults die. The eggs hatch after six to 10 weeks.
Looking like white ants, this next generation falls to the ground, digs in and starts waiting.
Thirteen-year cicadas should not be confused with 17-year cicadas, which wait even longer for their brief flings, or dog-day cicadas, which make their raspy whines every year in late summer.
Thirteen- or 17-year cicadas pop up somewhere in Virginia almost every year. They are called "periodical cicadas." More romantic is their genus name, Magicicada.
When the insects do show up, they're in huge numbers — often hundreds of thousands per acre. Scientists believe that unusual wait-and-overwhelm system is a defense against birds and other bug eaters.
People can eat cicadas, too, said Day, who has had the pleasure. Like tofu, they taste like whatever they are cooked in.
The current cicada eruption, or emergence, is widespread across much of the South but not Virginia.
Our next big one comes in 2013, when 17-year cicadas should erupt in a wide swath from Northern Virginia through central Virginia to the North Carolina line.
Have your camera and ear plugs ready.
(804) 649-6453
Email
Facebook
Google
Twitter
Favorites
More
Advertisement