Scientist awaits cicadas' noisy return

Cicadas, the noisy arthropods, are expected to return to eastern Cincinnati this May, a biologist said.

The Cincinnati Enquirer reported Friday that the same bugs appeared in large numbers in eastern Hamilton, Butler and Clermont counties in Ohio in 1991.

Gene Kritsky, a professor of biology at the College of Mount St. Joseph, said this year most of the bugs are expected to appear in the area east of Interstate 71.

Additionally, the bugs are expected in south central Ohio, over the eastern half of Kentucky and parts of Tennessee, Indiana, Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, North Carolina, New York, Massachusetts and New Jersey, the newspaper said.

In Greater Cincinnati, he says, the cicadas are expected to emerge in the area mostly east of I-71, said Kritsky, who has been studying cicadas for 34 years.

He and his this year will be collecting data for a long-term study of the cicadas in Cincinnati.

"The cicadas are slowly revealing their secrets," he was quoted as saying.

Copyright 2008 by United Press International

Related stories:

From moths and cicadas come improvements to solar cells
Designing better solar cells might seem a question of electronics or chemistry, but for one University of Florida engineer, it starts with bugs.
Cicada sounds could damage hearing
Experts say the piercing mating call of the 17-year cicadas, which have taken parts of the Chicago area by storm, could cause damage to the ears of humans.
Nanotechnology goes out on a wing
What does a colorful and noisy backyard insect have to do with nanotechnology? Plenty, according to Jin Zhang and Zhongfan Liu, both professors at Peking University.
Three-Way Symbiosis Supplies Insect Pest With Well-Rounded Diet
The glassy-winged sharpshooter obtains a well-rounded diet by playing nice with two bacteria species that live inside the insect's cells.
Surprising Symbiosis: Glassy-Winged Sharpshooter Eats With Friends
Like a celebrity living on mineral water, the glassy-winged sharpshooter consumes only the dilute sap of woody plants—including grapevines in California, which is feverishly working to prevent the insect’s flight into prized vineyards. Now, in a surprising study published in the June 6 issue of Public Library of Science Biology, researchers at The Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR), the University of Arizona, and their colleagues have discovered that the sharpshooter’s deprivation diet is sneakily supplemented by not one, but two co-dependent bacteria living inside its cells.

News discussion:

General Science news