Brood X of the seventeen-year cicada (Magicicada septendecim) has emerged from the ground, as one can see from the above image of a discarded exoskeleton. Judging by their body parts strewn on the ground, many don’t make it, but others take to the trees and produce a call that sounds like the transporter from Star Trek. Cicadas are a big news story, at least in this part of the country.
(Note: Brood X should not be confused with Brand X, a jazz fusion group in which Phil Collins played drums in the Seventies.)
About a week ago I came upon the bizarre scene shown below. A cicada was missing its abdomen entirely, but the head and thorax were still alive and walking, pulling along some kind of predatory wasp. Presumably the wasp had eaten away the cicada’s abdomen, and was in the process of eating the rest of the cicada.
As Dieter would say . . . truly disturbing.
