Flora and Fauna News

Phoenix
Is Buzzing!

By Michael Plagens
Sonoran Desert Sciences

PHOENIX ----- What is all the excitement about? The intense heat of course! But who ... or what could possibly find the scorching heat so appealing? Cicadas. They're excited because they know the hottest temperatures are very often the prelude to moist summer monsoons. Legend has it that the first rains will appear two weeks after the first cicadas begin their buzzing mating ritual.

This makes sense because soon after mating the cicadas lay their eggs. They do so by inserting them into tender twigs of trees and shrubs using a sharp ovipositor (egg laying device). After two weeks time the eggs hatch and the tiny bugs fall to the ground intending to bore into the soil. If they encounter soil that is hardpacked and bone dry they will likely die; if instead the soil has been moistened by a good rain the bugs will succeed in digging down deep into the soil to find the tree roots where they will feed for many years.  Arizona's species' emergence are not synchronized like the periodic cicadas of eastern United States, which makes determining the exact length of their underground nymphal stage dificult to gauge.

2008    First cicadas in Phoenix area were heard June 22^nd.

2007    First cicadas in Phoenix were heard June 28^th.


2006    The cicadas are nearly a week late and are decidedly scarce.  Just a few straglers heard on July 2^nd. 

2005    The cicadas were a few days late and there are many fewer of them.  First ones heard on July 1^st. 

Ciciada Photo: SASI's Arthropod Zoo