After spending 17 years in complete darkness underground, cicadas are expected to make an appearance on the East Coast this spring, even in Schuylkill County.
Periodical cicadas are the cousins of katydids and crickets that have a unique breeding schedule and after 17 years of living underground, sucking the fluid out of the roots of trees and shrubs, come up in large groups all along the coast.
According to the Penn State Cooperative Extension, they typically begin emerging about the third week in May, when mature nymphs dig themselves out of the ground in great numbers, crawl to the nearest tree trunk, shrub or other vertical surface, and climb several inches up.
The nymph's skin then splits down the back, and the winged, sexually mature adult emerges that is about 1 1/2 inches long, mostly black with red eyes and other reddish markings.
Patrick M. "Porcupine Pat" McKinney, environmental education coordinator for the Schuylkill Conservation District, said Friday that since they love forested areas, the last time they were in the county, about 2003, it was mostly in the north in Sheppton and Oneida.
"I know when I was living in Sheppton, they had a big, massive boom of these, but nothing like what this is supposed to be," McKinney said. "There's actually people that are saying billions of them are going to be out coming in mid-April or early-May."
He also said there could be an abundance of them in southern Schuylkill County along the Blue Mountain and in other intermittent sections.
"This is all potential since anything is possible," he said. "It is really interesting to see and is one of the spectacular things to behold in nature."
McKinney said that while it wasn't like this around here, he has a friend that lives in Alexandria, Va., who told him when the cicadas popped out sometime within the last five years there, some areas were darkened by them.
"She said she was driving with her lights on, windshield wipers on and this is in mid-afternoon," McKinney said. "There were so many pummeling around."
He also said that the cicadas are pretty substantial when fully grown, about the size of a thumb.
While the cicadas don't harm people, Susan Hyland, Master Gardener coordinator with the Penn State Extension in Schuylkill County, said they do harm trees and plants.
Hyland said that a week to 10 days after the males begin singing, the females begin to lay eggs and each female lays up to 400 eggs in 40 to 50 pockets in the wood of several small branches of many types of trees, which more than 75 species of trees are known to be attacked.
Cicadas typically damage many ornamental and hardwood trees and while oaks are commonly attacked, the most seriously damaged are newly planted fruit and ornamental trees such as apple, dogwood, peach, hickory, cherry and pear.
Pines and other conifers are not commonly attacked.
To lay eggs, a female slices into the wood of the branch with her egg-laying apparatus and places the egg into the wood. She usually lays one to several dozen eggs in a single branch before moving to another branch or tree.
"This egg-laying activity lasts approximately 30 days and about 6 to 7 weeks later, the eggs hatch into tiny white nymphs," Hyland said. "The nymphs fall to the ground and burrow into the soil to feed on grass roots and eventually, tree roots for the next 17 years. A numbering system established in 1893 to keep track of these broods is still used today."
Hyland said that in 2003 she had to cover up her roses to protect them from the cicadas.
With there being numerous emergence broods for the cicadas, Hyland said that the county appears to be in Brood X, which will emerge in 2021, and can expect some from Brood II that are emerging this year.
Depending on the population, cicadas emerge every 13 to 17 years.
"It was not as expected (in 2003) because they determined that the larva had been disrupted by agriculture and building that upturned them so they died and they didn't hatch," Hyland said. "Seventeen years is a long time to be lying around underground hoping nobody bothers you."
She also said that every summer you also hear the annual ones.
"They work the same way," Hyland said. "They are not in these huge numbers all at once and they're just as ugly."
They typically emerge once the soil 8 inches below the surface gets to 64 degrees and Hyland said our soil has come up to about 55 degrees, which is when the forsythia bloom.
McKinney said that the Bureau of Forestry under the state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources will be "very curious" about the cicadas and will be studying them.
"Now with this early boom, you're going to hear them all over the place," McKinney said. "You usually hear them from mid-summer. This one outfit, this quote was they thought it was like a spaceship that had landed and that's exactly how it sounds, like an episode of Star Trek, so it's kind of neat."