They're here!
photo by David Gardner
They're here!
photo by David Gardner
This cicada shell needs some new clothes!
photo by Michael O'Brien
Ferris Robinson
The cicadas are coming! The cicadas are coming!
This phenomenon is all over the news, from NBC News to TikTok as well as in Tish Gailmard’s article the Mountain Mirror.
As we all know by now, every 221 years, two specific broods of this insect emerge at the same time, and that’s going on this summer!
I grew up playing with cicadas the same way some children play with tiny dolls. (Remember Trolls?) I didn’t call them cicadas, because I thought they were locusts, which they are NOT. I searched for their shells and found them mostly clinging to the shaggy cedar tree in my grandmother’s front yard in Athens, Tenn. Like brown parched paper, the barbed, crinkled legs held tight to the tree, and I was very careful when I lifted them off. The split at the thorax, the little hatch where the insect had emerged, as well as the creepy oversized jaw and front pincers, fascinated me and my siblings.
Once my brother and sister and I had gathered all we could find, we dressed them up. Like, literally. My grandmother gave us remnants of fabric from her sewing room and a pair of scissors (should we have been allowed to play with scissors?) as well as a bottle of Elmer’s and told us to go play outside. When I tired of chasing my siblings with the dangerous double-bladed instrument, we cut out tiny outfits for the bugs’ shells and carefully glued them on the delicate exoskeletons. We chose a gingham skirt for one and accented it with a rick rack cummerbund. Another of these prehistoric looking shells sported a button hat, a dotted Swiss cape and a tuft of gnarled yarn for hair. Others donned gold fringe left over from the living room drapes and wool culottes and a plaid top hat.
We spread them out all over the rock wall in the garden, a dozen or so exquisitely and garishly dressed, and admired them for a few minutes before reverting to the running-with-scissors option for amusement.
The three of us would have had a heyday this summer with the abundance of these creatures! The phenomenon that will take place soon last occurred when Thomas Jefferson was president, and as Tish Gailmard says, “No one alive today will witness the next phenomenon in 2045.
These cicadas can inform scientists on various studies relating to climate change and other things, and we, as citizens can be part of that! Tish recommends we download the Cicada Safari app and use it to take pictures and recordings when we notice these insects. Now that I know the correct name of these cool insects (they are 13-17 years in the making!), I’m ready.
I didn’t see these cicada remnants for years, maybe because I didn’t take the time to look. I want to make up for that this summer. It’s high time my grandchildren learn how to style exoskeletons without putting each other in harms way. At age 3 and 9 months, they are more advanced than I ever was and wouldn’t dream of playing with scissors.
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Ferris Robinson is the author of three children’s books, “The Queen Who Banished Bugs,” “The Queen Who Accidentally Banished Birds,” and “Call Me Arthropod” in her pollinator series “If Bugs Are Banished.” “Making Arrangements” is her first novel. “Dogs and Love - Stories of Fidelity” is a collection of true tales about man’s best friend. Her website is ferrisrobinson.com and you can download a free pollinator poster there. She is the editor of The Lookout Mountain Mirror and The Signal Mountain Mirror.
This cicada shell needs some new clothes!
photo by Michael O'Brien