Tons of insects that normally go unseen are beginning their grand, noisy appearance in Aiken County this month, in a high-profile representation of Brood XIX — cicadas with a 13-year life cycle.
It's cheap entertainment for kids and cats, a feast for fish and a shock for some people who are repelled by the sight of thumb-sized, buzzing, winged insects with bulging eyes.
Fishing memories are a part of the mixture for North Augusta resident Greg Hurt, who works in the timber industry and enjoys the outdoors. Cicadas, he said, can be "just unbelievable" in terms of the noise level.
On track to be strongly affected this year are nine South Carolina counties — Aiken, Anderson, Greenville, Laurens, Oconee, Pickens, Spartanburg, Union and York, according to Captain Experiences, a business dedicated to connecting outdoorsmen with highly rated hunting and fishing guides.
Illinois may be especially abuzz this season, with two major broods emerging at about the same time in the Springfield area.
"I grew up 30 miles east of Springfield," said the Rev. Steve Davis, pastor of TrueNorth Church, in North Augusta. "They sound like a million chainsaws running at the same time."
A report from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign notes, "Male cicadas will start singing a few days after they begin to emerge to attract females. In the pockets of dense cicadas it will get very loud. Up to 90 decibels loud. That would be like standing next to a gas-powered lawn mower. People walking through the woods wouldn’t be able to hear each other talking, even if they were side-by-side."
Some naturalists, such as local Earth Day booster John Carman, welcome the chance to see periodical cicadas. The bugs, which do not sting or bite humans and do not carry diseases, are "magical and entertaining," in his words.
Carman, a Navy retiree, has lived "from coast to coast, plus Hawaii, plus Italy," over the years and has seen — and heard — cicadas in a variety of settings.
He recalled living in Virginia during one massive emergence, "and the noise… almost went through the house," he said, comparing the noise to that of a hovering helicopter.
"The kids had a great time. The cicadas were everywhere — on the grass, on the trees — just moving around, and then our son lived in Virginia 17 years later, so now he's a middle-ager and the same thing happened. He's got a little boy, and they were outside playing in it."
A cicada is "a perfect kids' bug," he said. "It's harmless. It's a little bit noisy. It's catchable. It's not a cockroach, that you have to worry about what's on it, and they're short-lived."
The above-ground lifespans are brief (usually about five or six weeks), but the presence is massive. This year's appearances, according to Captain Experiences, will involve more than 1,000 counties in 29 different states — not counting annual cicadas.
The periodicals "are insects that spend most of their lives underground as nymphs, feeding off the sap of tree roots," according to the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History.
Its website notes, "They emerge to transform into adults and mate. Some periodical cicadas emerge every 13 years and others emerge every 17 years. The males 'sing' by vibrating a membrane on the sides of their bodies. After mating, the female makes slits in tree branches and lays eggs there. The eggs hatch six to seven weeks later, the nymphs fall to the ground and go into the soil, and the cycle begins again. The adult periodical cicadas only live three to four weeks."
People looking to keep an eye on the massive uprisings and declines have a variety of website options, including such possibilities as cicadamania.com ("cicada mugs, shirts and more") and the University of Connecticut's biodiversity research collection.
