Cicadas and other insects

[ozziegiraffe]

At two of the four schools I visited this week, we were practically deafened by cicadas. I even spotted a dead Black Prince on the pathway at one of them.
Meanwhile, at another, I was bitten by a horse fly which drew blood. Fortunately, no allergic reaction.
Australia is now joining in the great Christmas beetle hunt on inaturalist.org . If I see any, I have to photograph it, and upload the photo.

[jimm]

Haven't heard any in Melbs so far this season. Come to think of it I don't remember ever seeing one here - odd. Growing up in Sydney there were thousands - I'd go out and collect them most late afternoons.

Likewise, I don't recall seeing Christmas Beetles here either.

Horse Fly = March Fly?

[groo]

Not complaining, but mosquitoes and flies also seem to be somewhat thin on the ground this summer as well. March flies seem to exhibit a steep learning curve. The March flies of October / November are easy to swat (sorry, Liisa) but as the months progress they become more cunning and a worthier foe.

Haven't noticed too many cicadas yet and don't think I've seen a Christmas beetle in years.

[Liiisa]

Cicadas! (I have to look up what a Black Prince is.) (Oh! It's a black cicada... I thought you meant that the Black Prince was surrounded by cicadas)

I love them. We have the kind here that live underground for 17 years and then emerge en masse; people either love them or are freaked out by them. pagevalleynews.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/cicadas-leaves.jpg

They have cicadas in Costa Rica that are almost as big as my hand.

groo, you can swat all the flies you want!

[groo]

And fire ants! They've been found on the Gold Coast and are alleged to be marching down this way - a colony found in an industrial are around 20km north, signage all over the place.

"groo, you can swat all the flies you want!"
I have a neighbour who's been seen to remove a leech from her arm and gently place it on a blade of grass.

[Queen]

I do so like living in a city.

[Liiisa]

Oh we get the periodical cicadas in the city! A couple got into a bus I was on during the 1987 emergence, and that was fun. They're adorable and huge and stupid and crash into people, so people were screaming.

During that emergence I also went to a wedding that was held on a rooftop patio in the city, and cicadas were EVERYwhere. Hilarious.

[ozziegiraffe]

We had plenty of cicadas in the Sydney suburbs when I was growing up.

[Queen]

Oh I don't mind cicadas, but I'm very happy if I go to my grave without meeting a fire ant or a leech.

(technically I've met leeches already but they were in a controlled environment with a big piece of glass between them and me)

[vinnyd]

The second-to-last time Brood X, the big one, of the 17-year cicadas there was something in the papers about a woman who had recently arrived from Hungary in 1938, a Brood X year. She was talking to her neighbor about them, and thought to herself "I really must learn English better. It sounded like she said they come out every seventeen years."

[Liiisa]

vinny, that made me laugh out loud

I prefer not to come into contact with leeches, but I think the terrestrial ones are pretty cool. The account name i use on various social media was created in honor of a terrestrial leech I encountered in Kerala.

Fire ants, on the other hand: BIG nope

[Phar Lap]

I love listening to the cicadas. When I was growing up, we had a big house on a huge block of land - back then it wasn’t thought of as ‘huge’ - it was just ‘normal’! Anyway, every summer you would hear the cicadas chirping in the evening and it would become very loud as the evening wore on. I found it very comforting. There were holes/burrows? in the ground all around the orange tree and sometimes I’d see the shed skin of a cicada - it was beautiful and quite delicate,milked fine lace.

[wombatrois]

There's a map somewhere on the interwebs that shows the spread of Christmas beetles. Mostly NSW, but you do get them in WA.

OK, so how do you pronounce cicadas ...

Me? Sic-ard-as(s)

I know some say sic-ayd-as, but they are clearly wrong.

We on the west coast have had them expanding/contracting their little abdomens for weeks now (yes, I looked that up :-D ). Here's some different sounds they make. According to this site, we had a massive emergence in 2020/1 (in south-east Australia, so technically doesn't include me) and ours can live underground for only 6 - 7 years.

wildambience.com/wildlife-sounds/australian-cicada-sounds/

[Liiisa]

Sic-ard-as?!! Here it's sic-ayd-as Wow, thank you for noting that.

Another memory of the 1987 periodical cicada emergence: Spawn's elementary school had a kid-produced newsletter, which I was the parent in charge of typing up on the computer. One of the kids wrote a short piece about the cicadas, but he spelled it "zacades," which I still remember and thought was adorable at the time.

[Phar Lap]

Sic-ard-as or  sic-ayd-as?
Sic-ard-as is the British pronunciation while sic-ayd-as is the American (pronunciation). My mum and dad always said sic-ayd-as. 

[Webs]

Ci Cay Dah

There is no R in there.

We get them. They're not horrible.

[Liiisa]

I say cicada, you say cicarda, let's call the whole thing off

[Phar Lap]

How to pronounce cicadas

[ozziegiraffe]

In my part of the world they’re si-kar-das.

[psw]

As for leeches, there were plenty in the lake at summer camp and the boathouse was well-supplied with salt to remove them. We routinely checked for leeches when getting out of the water just as hikers check for ticks on the way home.

[vinnyd]

Most North Americans (and Scots and Irish etc) should bear in mind that the people writing an r in the middle syllable don't pronounce r's after vowels. So when they say si kar da they mean the sound that we would probably spell si kah da.

When Sade first came along, US newspapers picked up from the British press that her name was pronounced shar DAY, and I have heard Americans pronounce it with an r, which is not right. The first syllable is like the shah of Iran.

[Liiisa]

I was assuming that as well, just too lazy to write it down

[wombatrois]

Not knowing phonetics, I use the "r" to show it's pronounced like car, but then again, maybe you do pronounce the r in that word where you live?

Anyhoo, in news just to hand, in NSW a deafening sound is happening

www.abc.net.au/news/2023-12-23/cicada-chorus-rings-loud-this-summer-nsw/103249584

[Liiisa]

Yes, I'd say "car" with the R strongly pronounced! Car, star, bar, all have a pronounced R

[ozziegiraffe]

I’m a bit further north than that area in the article, but was prompted to start the thread by similar cacophonies.in two of my bush schools.
As for car, I’m on the opposite side of the country to Wombat, but pronounce it the same way as she does.

[jimm]

9:15pm and cicada has just started up, but it's too dark to find it.

[ozziegiraffe]

I’ve had all sorts of insects, amphibians and birds serenading me, but so far no cicadas here.

[fishface]

Sic ay das (or si kay das).

Weirdos with your sic ah das

[wombatrois]

Ha!

We have had a few here, but they are more prevalent in the bush.

[sprite]

So, I love Dr Hannah Fry, but she said that the cicadas are either in 13 or 17 year cycles, but that they all come out at once? So, 12 years 0 cicadas, next year a gazillion? Is this correct?
It's a way of preventing predation because none of their predators will survive long enough to pass on the skill of catching them or a taste for eating them.

This year, apparently, will be one of the few years when those two cycles coincide.

(it was on a 6 Music Maths of Life episode about prime numbers.)