2000 AD Online Forum

Every 17 years we get these critters called cicadas. They last for about two months, and they come by the thousands. The noise is almost like the sound the UFOs made in the old 1950's sci-fi movies.



Will

You in OZ Critter? I've heard these when I've been over there, I thought you got them every year, or is that just in Queensland? Quite a strange sound when you first hear it until you know what it is and get used to it!

apparently they're very nice to eat, lightly fried with salt

well, that's what i read on the bbc anyway

thinky

arent they the wierd beasties that live under the ground in stasis for 17 years & then only hatch out & live a short time?

IT'S A SIGN!

I live in the US Scottie. When the Colonists first encountered them they mistakenly called them Locust. Just don't eat the wings thinky, they can cause a allergic reaction.
Yep Bou, they're called the "17 Year Locust", every 17 years they dig thierselves from the ground, the males mate first and die. Then the females lay thier eggs in the bark of the tree and die. So from mid-May to mid-July they buzz around and scare little children.

Will

Link: Cicada Mania

aye, thats one hell of a freaky inscect, i mean 17 years? why ? why 17 ? why at all, why not have a rota & only some of them hatch every 4.5 years ? aint nature wonderful/wierd?

Don't you think the gold triming on the wing is quite beautiful?

'aye, thats one hell of a freaky inscect, i mean 17 years? why ?'

It's to do with 17 being a prime number.

We get them every summer in the South of France. I used to get them confused with crickets. Cicadas go silent when you get close, so they are pretty difficult to spot in small numbers.

My wife and I differ on how we pronouce the word though, which is somewhat confusing to Finn (and me).

I say si-car-da

She says shi-cay-da

Any concensus?

Wake

why at all, why not have a rota & only some of them hatch every 4.5 years ?

They used to be on a rota so a new batch hatched every year, having spent 17 years underground.  Then came a dark time, and 16 of the 17 generations were extinguished (something to do with comets.  Probably.)  

I'd go for si-car-da... but I really don't know!

see-car-da for me.

We had a bat flying round above our garden last night.

No cicadas, though.

Un-interesting but true bat story...
I was roasting chestnuts on the coal fire in my old house (we were well poor back then) and the gas escaping must have caused a high pitched noise that disrupted the bat's senses as we suddenly had them hitting the windows.  Not nice for the bat, or for me as I had only just watch Salems Lot on the TV.

ssi-caaa-Da

Bats are amazing, we generally only get the pipstrelle ones here, tiny ikkle cuties. ( to ligt n boney to be really cuddly tho );
r'member a place in normandy where there were billions of bigger ones in the evenings, if one stood still out side they'd do this wierd figure of eight around yur head, & i swear you could feel their ultra sonics reverberating in back of skull. coooel.

ultimate wierd night noise, never mind yur skreech owl, or yur vixen skreech, anyone experienced the snipe at night ? whaaaaaa shudder

The buzzing! The Sign!
(see B&B for further details... )

si-KAH-da

Are these ones like the European ones, where you hear one of the little bastards, but even when you follow the noise you still can't see them?  Reason being, they throw their voice about 3 inches to one side.  (Oh, and they're usually a crenellated grey on tree bark).

Link: Listen to them sing here...

Brrrrrrrr.

I hate bugs.

Blech.

- Trout

Bats are cool but moths are cooler.

They have evolved ears specifically to pick up the ultra-sonics of bats. These underarm ears enable the moth to tell where the pat is coming from and automatically send the moth into a nose dive, thus avoiding becoming dinner.

If you can replicate the sound then you can make moths drop from the skies - pretty hideous to some people, but I think they're cool.

Yep,snipe would give ye the jitters ok.What about seals at night?...
...I was staying on an island bird sanctuary type thing one time,island had no 'leccy etc so was pretty dark at night.Lying in bed you could hear the wind gusting and the room would be periodically lit up by the pulse of the lighthouse on the next island,and then your woken by something which sounds balefully canine,but somehow different or wrong in some way,deeper and cracked, coming from *somewhere* nearby.The light keeps pulsing.You check the corners by the flash.You decide it's coming from *just outside the window*.You carefully look out to see all the seals hanging about doing seal stuff!
Hurray for seals!

I say sic-adah BTW.
I used to work in zoology,so trust me ;p Bugs rule!

M.

Bugs, as you say, rule. So, if these cicadas only hatch once every 17 years, what was making all that racket in Oz? Now i'm scared...
Quality bat story:
When i went to Melbourne, me and my recently emigrated bud went to a party at one of her friends houses where they had an enormous mystery fruit tree in the back garden. After a few quality beers, the guy chuckles insanely, picks up a cricket bat and runs screaming and flailing into the tree. Suddenly there's big f*ck off fruitbats flying out everywhere! There must of been about 50 in this tree all night! It was just like the old scooby doo titles!

Although the things only metamorphose into adults after a 17 year period as grubs (much less in some species) there will still be some every year in mating season. If you consider that some eggs were laid 17 years ago, some were laid 16 years ago, some 15. etc.

Please direct all ridiculous animal questions here - as I often worry myself with the strange things I know.

Fact: The giant squid has the largest eye of any creature on the earth.

I think Wake is right there.
 the cicadas in Queensland and Japan for that matter are different.
 I heard that if you can see a W on the wings of the once every 17 year type cicadas, there will (be a war or something else beginning with w). there`s a cute article about them in last week`s Guardian Weekly

No-one's mentioned Maybugs yet.

*cockchafers*

hur hurr.

ive never heard the seals crys , ( tho being the only girl in the village i have of corse oft canoed amoung them ), having heard some of the scariest stories in the world told about selkies/ seal people by the traveling folk, i retain a mighty superstitious respect for said beasties.

The Snipe, ladies & gentlemen for those of you not familiar with this bird, is the one that on recordings of monarch of the glen, sounds like a warbly wavery bird noise in the tarten clad pine sunny pine forest.
In reality this birds song at night, in the windswept rainswept midsummer all night semi gloom, is like all your ghosts / alien abductions / kelpies / pycho zither players with fiddler backing bands all come at once. In moves about the sky above you, real close, making hair stand on end, yet you can't see it, its above you , then to the left, then the right... again think 50's horror movie sound effexts vibrating yur brain. course its really just a silly looking brown bird.

Never heard a snipe, but I can confirm that the sound of a seal is well creepy.

Saw a seal give birth last year - there was an immense splat of blood, it fell out, and then the magpies started eating the placenta.

Plus the little furry ones looked at me with baleful eyes - fought to obey the no stroking rule - got too close  - and the little bastard growled at me.

I was driving past a field, this time last year, just as a calf was plopping out the back of its mum. I'll take that sight to my grave, I can tell you.

And I'll remember that line for days....

LOL

Bolt-01

aye theres notjing quite like the sickly yellow of the bulging amniotic sack before it bursts, and the look of pained stupidity in the birthing beasts eyes. yuk.

ive had to help a lamb & a kitten out in my time,eww & the smelll

Wasn't close enough to smell it, thankfully.

I assume the lamb and kitten did not come out together?

arrr they did come out of the arse of a cicada thay did, there be monsters in these parts..

wow & shite !

 i was just watching a golden eagle, right here from my 'desk'* but i looked away to find a thread to enthus upon & i lost it.

and yes it was a proper golden eagle, not a tourist eagle = buzzard. buzzards are big, eagles are like funking areoplanes, & there it was wheeling down from the 1000ft crags against the blue sky.


* desk = potters wheel with chipboard plank & lap top on.

Actually its pronounced sa kay da. Today they were swarming. Really wierd but kinda pretty. I walked into the yard by my daughters swing set, they'd land on me in various places. chest, back, face, hair, ect.

Will

hi critter
i saw this on the news,

my best advice would be

DEEP FRIED WITH A LITTLE CHILLI PADI(thai method)

or perhaps

 sauted with onions and garlic in a first class olive oil. then dressed with a little lemon jiuce and some chopped cilantro.
(expensive golf playing expat chefs suggestion.)who needs them eh.