Crawling out from underground every 13 or 17 years, the periodical cicadas are nature’s kings of the calendar.

Trillions of evolution’s bizarro wonders, red-eyed periodical cicadas that have pumps in their heads and jet-like muscles in their rears, are about to emerge in numbers not seen in decades and possibly centuries.

Crawling out from underground every 13 or 17 years, with a collective song as loud as jet engines, the periodical cicadas are nature’s kings of the calendar.

These black bugs with bulging eyes differ from their greener-tinged cousins that come out annually. They stay buried year after year, until they surface and take over a landscape, covering houses with shed exoskeletons and making the ground crunchy.

This spring, an unusual cicada double dose is about to invade a couple parts of the United States in what University of Connecticut cicada expert John Cooley called “cicada-geddon.” The last time these two broods came out together in 1803 Thomas Jefferson, who wrote about cicadas in his Garden Book but mistakenly called them locusts, was president.

    • givesomefucks@lemmy.worldEnglish
      87·
      7 months ago

      You’re streets behind…

      https://wexnermedical.osu.edu/blog/buckeyebites-cooking-with-cicadas

      Hillbillies have eaten them for generations.

      I had them as a kid once, fried up like wild mushrooms they weren’t bad. I forget what they called them to get kids to eat them, but the realization was better than when I found out “turkey fries” were deep fried turkey testicles, and not as bad when “extra dark meat chicken” was disclosed as rabbit/squirrel

      • dlpkl@lemmy.world
        3·
        7 months ago

        I just can’t over eating them with all their organs and poo still inside them.

          • dlpkl@lemmy.world
            3·
            7 months ago

            I mean, even though shrimp are arthropods like insects, with shrimp you typically remove the head, legs, and digestive tract before eating them. The tail’s usually the only thing left.

            • givesomefucks@lemmy.worldEnglish
              32·
              7 months ago

              Yeah, I should have said crawdads/crawfish.

              But they’re basically the same.

              Most people take the claws off, because there’s just no meat there and lots of shell. But they’ll leave the legs, head, everything else.

              Some people try to get the meat out with a fork, some people pop the whole thing in their mouth and spit the shell out. Some even eat the entire thing, the shell is really could for joint issues btw.

              There’s a lot of variation, but people eating cicadas have likely tried other weird food already. It’s not like in a couple months everyone is gonna be eating them.

      • danafest@lemm.ee
        31·
        7 months ago

        Last time they came around I decided to give it a shot. Best way was just pan fried with butter. Crunchy, slightly nutty flavor. Not bad at all and lots of free food.