Cicadas’ bountiful buzzing is back

By Brendan Buhler (contact)

Thursday, July 24, 2008 | 2 a.m.

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Will Pratt, Curator of Invertebrates at UNLV's Barrick Museum of Natural History, talks about Las Vegas' Apache cicada
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Pratt talks about where cicadas live in Las Vegas
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Pratt talks about what brings the cicadas out of the ground
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Cicadas are perfectly harmless. This may be hard to accept when walnut-sized insects surround your house and hiss like a thousand weed whackers or, worse, when suicide cicadas, for reasons unknown to man or science, begin hurling themselves at your patio door and, — oh no! — now they’re at the dog door, they’re trying to come in, like some Hitchcock movie, but, no. Cicadas are perfectly harmless. To help you get over it, we talked to Will Pratt, the curator of invertebrates at UNLV’s Barrick Museum of Natural History. Here’s what we learned:

What’s our cicada’s name?

Diceroprocta apache, the Apache cicada. Unlike its famous Midwestern cousins that live for 17 years and have giant brood emergences, ours has a life span of two or three years and there’s a small brood every year.

Where do they live the rest of the year?

Beneath your very feet. Cicadas live all of their lives underground, except for a two-month adulthood. “You could think of the adults as a stage the nymphs use to reproduce and disperse,” Pratt says, which is probably how your kids think about you.

Where do they come from?

Here. Apache cicadas are native to the Las Vegas Valley and much of the Southwest. Originally, they probably were confined to the springs and the washes, but as we made our homes here, we made more homes for cicadas, usually by watering our lawns.

How do they make that noise?

The male cicada vibrates two membranes on his abdomen, just behind his wings, creating rapid clicking sounds when the temperature suits it. Almost the entire cicada’s body acts as an amplifier. Female cicadas apparently find this sexy.

How long will this go on?

Another month or so.

Can anything be done?

You could pull up and pave over every plant and dirt patch in your yard and persuade all of your neighbors within, say, 400 yards to do the same. Or you could eat the cicadas.

Really?

Yes, there are recipes available online, including one for cicada-portobello quiche. But if you’re allergic to shellfish, you should give these arthropods a pass.

Yuck?

We wouldn’t know.