Brood X Cicadas Emerging

  It's been 17 long years but now the Brood X cicadas are emerging. I saw the first a couple of days ago and yesterday I heard the first tentative songs. When we left the house yesterday we saw a nymph working to remove himself (herself?) from his exoskeleton. It appears to be a slow and laborious process.

 This one was on our bell post and he was pulling himself out the top back of the exoskeleton. Looking into those red eyes, he seems to almost be straining. I stood there and watched him for several minutes. His movements were minute but purposeful. There was no jerking, just a slow, steady "ooze" up and away. For seconds there was no movement at all.

 A view from atop and at  an angle shows him mostly free. I wonder how his legs (those ivory-colored stringy things) can be pulled f rom the chitin legs that are so much smaller? In fact his whole body was expanding quite quickly. As he pulled out, there was no way he'd even fit back in. The case he exited was much smaller than his body now.

 A view from directly above and the cicada takes on the appearance of a small flower getting ready to open. The process is perhaps similar. I was under the impression that it was a bit of a wet, sticky process but I'm wondering now whether the threads of stickiness I seemed to observe were not just long white body parts?

 This picture was taken today (a day later) of another cicada, already free of his exoskeleton and drying himself on the back of one of our rockers. The body quickly darkens and the wings change from milky white to transparent. We found the drying time of the cicada in the first three pictures to be something less than three hours. When we returned from an excursion, he was gone. Only the case remained.

 So how do cicadas know when their 17 years are up? I have not read anything to that effect but I'll take a guess. It is not timekeeping at all but rather a series of stages that finally, after 17 years, result in "birth". There may be 17 stages or there may be many more but when they're completed, 17 years have passed and it's time to sing. The seasons are surely the background  clock.

 In 2004 both Dad and Mom were still living. In 2038 will I be? I'd be 88 (going on 89 that July). I have my doubts so I suppose, as raucous and annoying as they are I should enjoy the rare party of these noisemakers.

 It's going to be a noisy few weeks ahead.