Magicidada sp. Photo by Bruce Marlin.

For people living in the eastern United States, early summer in can involve a lot of time spent trying to talk over the sound of cidadas calling. Millions of cicadas, Magicicada septendecim, emerge every 17 years to mature, call, mate, lay eggs, feed, and return to the soil. You may hate them–as they land on you, leave their exoskeletons clinging to bark, eat young leaves–or you can love them. Of course, we hope you will learn to love them because they are amazing creatures and can teach us a lot. For example:

• During the time they are living underground, the cicada larvae feed on nutrient-poor plant sap from roots. They get missing nutrients due to symbiotic and complicated relationships with two species of specialized bacteria. Businesses with few resources can learn from cicada how to use cooperative relationships with specialized partners to survive.
• Cicadas have self-cleaning wings. The surface microstructures of the wings have inspired interest in creating superhydrophobic coatings to prevent contamination, erosion, and bacterial accumulation.
• The periodic life cycle of the cicadas provides mass pulses of nutrients that encourage growth of the forest trees they feed on. The lesson we can learn from this is that although we may think of organisms like the cicada as pests and maybe even want to wipe them out using pesticides, we have to remember that they play an important role in maintaining our ecosystems.
• The exoskeleton of the cicada, like that of other insects, has some remarkable properties. It adjusts to loads and strains, it’s made from a versatile compound called chitin, and as the old material is dissolved the new material is formed without being affected by the chemical that’s dissolving the old one.

So, what’s not to love? Even the source of that annoying drone is fascinating, if you get a chance to watch how it’s done. Of course, that’s easy for me to say…I live in Montana and we don’t have to hear them.