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Current time: March 29, 2024, 2:22 am

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A Plague of Locusts
#1
A Plague of Locusts
The 17-year cicadas will be back this spring…
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/22...de=1441727

We will see if there are as many this go around as there were in 2004 (there are different broods that are on different schedules). My only worry is that my boys have seen cicada exoskeletons, and are terrified of them. They do look gross, but they're harmless, so hopefully they'll get over it Undecided Maybe we could keep a few in a jar as pets...

In 2004, there were so many, when you'd walk on the sidewalks there was this awful crunching sound because you couldn't avoid stepping on them. They'd fly into my bike helmet air vents when I'd ride to work. I was working at a shoe store at the time and we had to keep the doors open during business hours, so there were cicadas throughout the store. Part total grossness, part cycle of life awesomeness. I liked the sound though… It was like the hum of some otherworldly spaceship, oddly soothing.
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#2
RE: A Plague of Locusts
Interesting that a 17-year life cycle would evolve.
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#3
RE: A Plague of Locusts
Right now I have a plague of Crickets...bloody bastards!!

They have evolved to avoid predation by NOT having a "voice" http://www.ozanimals.com/Insect/Black-Fi...modus.html
"The Universe is run by the complex interweaving of three elements: energy, matter, and enlightened self-interest." G'Kar-B5
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#4
RE: A Plague of Locusts
One of our cats is an excellent cricket hunter, he leaves only the prickly legs. I could ship him to Oz for you.
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#5
RE: A Plague of Locusts
Oh yes PLEASE! Big Grin

But these little fuckers don't make a sound...(they drive me bonkers! Angry )

Hang on ..Cat?

I'm allergic to cats... Sad
"The Universe is run by the complex interweaving of three elements: energy, matter, and enlightened self-interest." G'Kar-B5
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#6
RE: A Plague of Locusts
I was about to ask how silent crickets drive anyone crazy, but it really is a soothing sound, IMO. I haven't been to Puerto Rico in a very long time, but the sound of the crickets and tree frogs at night is a very clear and welcome memory.
"Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape- like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered."

-Stephen Jay Gould
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#7
RE: A Plague of Locusts
(March 23, 2013 at 9:02 am)Tonus Wrote: I was about to ask how silent crickets drive anyone crazy, but it really is a soothing sound, IMO. I haven't been to Puerto Rico in a very long time, but the sound of the crickets and tree frogs at night is a very clear and welcome memory.

These ones drive you crazy if you are part CAT


Small objects that move in and erratic fashion...and eat all of your carefully planted seedlings... yes this drives me crazy Big Grin

I'd be happier with Cicadas
"The Universe is run by the complex interweaving of three elements: energy, matter, and enlightened self-interest." G'Kar-B5
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#8
RE: A Plague of Locusts
The only "animal plague" I have ever witnessed was a rat and mouse overpopulation 3 years ago, when almoust every single house in the erea I lived was infested with rats.

And last year (sue to a very short and very cold winter) there was an enormous overpopulation of wasps and hornets which was terrifying for me, since I hate those things.
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#9
RE: A Plague of Locusts
We get weird bugs from Japan once in a while for some fucking reason, aside from that we don't get infestations too often around here.
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#10
RE: A Plague of Locusts
We've recently (the past 3-4 years) had an infestation of these guys: http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2011-...sitic-wasp There's no natural predators, so they are still around. A friend of mine opened her chimney flue last fall and thousands of these stink bugs fell out, eww. When they fly, they're really loud too, like a mini-heliocoptor.
I'll post pics when the cicadas come… It's really something to see so many of them.
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