For the first time since 1803 two species of cicadas are emerging at the same time. One species every 17 years and another called, the Great Brood every 13 years. The problem is in 2011 there were no sightings for the Great Southern Brood in Louisiana. LSU Ag Center Insect Diagnostician, Christopher Carlton says that could be due to a few reasons from migration to extinction in the area.
“Because of patchy record keeping we haven’t been able to document reliable emergences.”
The Ag Center is asking for help to document the emergence of individual cicadas but also to see if there are any chorusing activities in the trees.
“Go onto an app called iNaturalist which a lot of people use and its world wide in scope and it will allow you to post pictures in the field.”
Carlton says, “Once they are gone they never recover.” And with peak emergence passed there’s still time to get out and help.
“We’re just probably past the peak of the emergence, but there will still be a lot of cicadas out there singing. But it will begin to whine down here in about another week and by mid June they all be gone.”
Emergence areas can be as small as acre or less.” says Carlton.
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