Looking for 17 Year Cicadas to pin, IA, IL, MO, MS and LA

[Green_Elite_Cab]

Glad you found what you needed. I thought my Japanese maple trees were going to be destroyed this year from Cicadas so I bought insect netting... then they never came. Apparently the island I live on is outside the cicada area, even though much of the rest of Maryland got struck. I have found a bunch of holes in my lawn though, been wondering if they are from cicadas.

dave

When did the holes appear? If it was mid-may to early June, it was probably them.

That said, these cicadas tend to be confined to "hot spots". They tend to stick around the area that they hatched from, and so they don't spread much year to year. Individually or in small groups, you wouldn't even notice them. Compared to the annual cicadas, they're fairly quiet and they are weak flyers. In fact, they don't even try to escape 9 out of 10 times.


You may have had some cicadas in your yard, but if you never spotted any, there is a good chance that you only had small group in your yard. It takes them a few days after hatching before they start singing and flying around, and given their "weak" nature, there is a strong possibility the local predators polished them off before you ever noticed them. This appears to be the case in several locations closer to me, where shells and holes were found, even a set of wings, but no singing or adults spotted (the ones I captured were from Staten Island, NY and Metuchen, NJ where there were millions).


As for your trees, the netting probably was not necessary. Only the youngest trees are threatened by these Cicada swarms, and even then, only when they are laying eggs (the females dig trenches into thin branches and twigs to lay their eggs). This is what causes the "Flagging" you might hear people mention, where some branches die off from having to many cicadas try to lay eggs on them.

They don't consume enough, even in their large numbers, to ever actually hurt the tree.