Winter storm, limbs down, energy out, blame the cicadas? — Bug of the Week

Nicely, a cabal of cicada consultants met final week to evaluate the science behind the state of affairs. Within the first complete evaluate of periodical cicada biology, revealed in 1907, cicada professional C. L. Marlatt famous that “The a part of the plant chosen for a receptacle for the eggs is nearly invariably the twigs of the earlier 12 months’s progress.”  A later research by entomologists Fred Miller and Webster Crowley on greater than 100 frequent shade timber reveled that periodical cicadas laid eggs in twigs ranging in dimension from ~4 mm to 11 mm (~ ⅛ to ½ inch) in diameter. Take a look at among the photos that accompany this narrative and you will notice that the branches which turned brown or snapped and fell beneath timber on account of cicada egg-laying, are small diameter twigs at most a number of toes lengthy. Even with a load of heavy snow it’s extremely unlikely that these small twigs could be heavy sufficient to interrupt a transmission line.

Did periodical cicadas trigger some harm to unprotected timber rising in orchards, shade tree nurseries, and landscapes? Certainly cicadas trigger some harm, however are they answerable for the widespread energy outages related to final week’s storms? Nah, this one belongs to Mom Nature having a little bit of enjoyable with our city infrastructure.