What to know about cicadas

AccuWeather

P.J. Liesch of the University of Wisconsin's Insect Diagnostic Lab joins the AccuWeather Network to provide information about the emergence of cicadas, insects that spend much of their lives buried.

Transcript

00:00Cicadas are here. They're driving Ariel and I nuts. When are they going to go?

00:07Soon. Soon. Most likely within the next two weeks. And when these insects come out,

00:12the adults are relatively short-lived, usually a period of roughly a month. And so once they

00:19come out, about a week later, you start getting all that noise. And then you've got about three

00:23to four weeks. And then they're going to be gone for 17 more years.

00:27Oh, thank God. That's 17 years, not long enough. They are not the cutest looking.

00:33They are. And I got to ask you this, Doctor. What are their predators? Who,

00:39for lack of a better word, I'm going to say, who eats them? It doesn't seem like I see any birds

00:45or any robins taking care of them. What are their natural predators?

00:49There's actually a lot of things that will eat them. That can include fish,

00:53a wide range of vertebrates on land. So terrestrial animals like raccoons, skunks,

00:59a wide range of birds will feed on these. So if you maybe have not seen that personally,

01:04it still is definitely happening out there. And actually, if you dig into the history books

01:09on these insects, humans have even used them as a food source. If you go back to records from the

01:141600s, it's well known that Native Americans have eaten these. I've tried them myself. And they're

01:21really kind of related to shrimp, if you think about it, from an evolutionary standpoint.

01:27I tried to make that the argument with my wife. It did not go very far.

01:31No. Okay. So why are they here? What do they do? And do they hurt people, pets, or property?

01:39Yeah. First off, really quite harmless. These are insects that have been around for millions of

01:44years. From their point of view, they are simply trying to perpetuate their species. And their

01:50strategy is to come out at these long time intervals, 17 years, that's going to make it

01:54harder, perhaps for predators to catch on to that pattern. When they come out, it's just a wild,

02:00crazy party for about a month. They come out, they're making a lot of noise. Those are the males

02:04singing to attract the females. They mate, they lay eggs, and then a short while later,

02:09those adults are dead and gone for 17 more years.

02:12Yeah. That's the noise. Yeah. All right. What can homeowners do to protect trees or keep cicadas

02:19out of yards and homes? Or is it just best to leave them alone?

02:24In my mind, it's really best to just kind of leave them be. It's a very short, ephemeral,

02:31I think it's a fascinating, amazing natural phenomenon to be able to witness this. For a given

02:36group of cicadas, you only have so many opportunities in your entire life to see these. So that's pretty

02:41cool from that scientific standpoint. In terms of threats to people and properties, really quite

02:47harmless. About the most damage they can do is when the females go to lay eggs, they'll cut slits

02:52into twigs of trees and shrubs and things like that. If you have a big tree in your yard, the tree

02:57is going to tolerate this damage just fine. The only situation I get concerned is if you maybe had a

03:02brand new tree or shrub you planted or a small one. In a situation like that, what I recommend to folks

03:08is cover that plant with some fine mesh netting. And you only need to do this for about a month

03:13when the cicadas are active. Once they're done and gone, you can take that netting off. But that's

03:18a good way to prevent some damage. Otherwise, not really much else you need to do.

03:23One more question. Sorry. When they're not flying around and making noise and mating,

03:27they're just underground, right? Or where are they going to be in the next 17 years?

03:31They spend most of their life down in the soil, in the dark. That's where the juveniles are

03:38developing. They're feeding on sap from tree roots. So they're down in the dark. There's no

03:42Netflix. All they have to eat is sap from trees. And then when they come up, they only have about a

03:48month, but it's a crazy party for them during that month or so. Wow. I have to hand it to you,

03:53doctor. You made cicadas fun. Yeah. And cool. And cool. Fun and cool.

03:58Made us feel like we were living through something, right? I'm going to be bragging

04:02to everybody about the cicada infestation in central Pennsylvania.

04:06That drove me nuts and it was like an apocalyptic sound for 24 hours. Doctor,

04:12thanks for joining us here. University of Wisconsin-Madison insect diagnostic lab. Again,

04:18thanks for joining us. A lot of great information.

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