SPLAT!!! WTH Was that??!!

[Monster Dave]

If you live in any of the southern states of the US and find yourself asking that question after a big bug explodes on your helmet visor, it's probably one of these harmless dudes:




After 13 years underground, they're baaaaaaack!!



Ride carefully in the swarms!!!

[corey]

wtf is it?

[Two dogs]

Cicada

[Monster Dave]

They are Cicadas.

Every 13 years they emerge from underground to mate and die. When they emerge and go through their life process, they leaving behind mass amounts of yellowish shells:



gross if you ask me.

[Raux]

I was riding a Moped one time YEARS ago, 15mph... WHACK in the throat... not a good feeling

[Monster Dave]

I was riding a Moped one time YEARS ago, 15mph... WHACK in the throat... not a good feeling

With average sizes ranging from 1in to 3inches, yeah, that would sting a little!!

[fastwin]

Really kind of a cool critter in sort of a prehistoric alien kind of way! They are like the infamous "B-29 bugs" from the movie On Any Sunday! I had a dog named Daisy years ago and I always referred to her as a heffa-lump and kept her around for comic relief. Sweet as the day is long but goofy as shit. That dog lived for cicadas! If there was one on the ground and buzzed it was DRT... dead right there! If she could stretch or leap high enough off the ground she would snatch them off tree trunks. Or she would patiently wait for them to crawl down and get in her range. She ate them like Snickers bars!! Cracked me up. My other dog Bowzer would give me this look that I translated as "Gross! Look at what this goofball is doing. This is as bad as her eating cat turds out of the litter box! Why on God's green earth do you make me live with her in the backyard?"

[TAftonomos]

Do all the cicadas of the world coordinate the years they stay underground ? 

They are around here every year 

[redxblack]

People often incorrectly call them locusts. Locusts are a specific kind of grasshoppers. I had a 2 inch grasshopper explode on my shoulder on one rural ride and I couldn't imagine a cicada in the face. Yet another reason to ATGATT.

[Raux]

Do all the cicadas of the world coordinate the years they stay underground ? 

They are around here every year 

actually there are 17 and 13 year Cicadas with several 'families' or broods that cary from region to region, sometimes overlapping. so in some areas it could appear they come more often when in fact that specific brood is either coming 13 or 17 year intervals.

[TAftonomos]

Growing up in NW Florida, we had cicadas every year.  I never noticed one year seeing more than another.  Of course, I wasn't really paying attention to bugs

Those suckers are loud though, thats for sure!

[IZ]

That's the only thing I remember about Prescott, AZ..hearing the cicadas buzzing the entire time.


Here's a bug for ya.  Posted up on TOB a few years back.  This sucker hit the telephone pole at the end of my driveway.  Knocked itself out briefly and then came after me.  It's a Palo Verde bug aka Palo Verde Beetle.

http://phoenix.about.com/od/deasertcreatures/ss/paloverdebeetle.htm





 

[akmnstr]

This why I like coming here.  Brushing up on entomology!  Most folks just think of the critters hitting their helmets a bugs.  The entomologist rider wants to know what they are.  Riding a moto is a way to sample the insect world!

[Monsterlover]

Growing up in NW Florida, we had cicadas every year.  I never noticed one year seeing more than another.  Of course, I wasn't really paying attention to bugs

Those suckers are loud though, thats for sure!

Same in pa. Those things are cool.

[dennisd]

This is the second internet forum I belong to where someone posted about the cicada emerging; on the other one they were all excited about the event.  I know they spend many years underground, depending on which sub-species; but here in Texas we have them every summer.  I find it unusual that in some areas they apparently coordinate and all emerge in the same year.