Animal
Periodical cicada
Magicicada spp.
Also known as: 17-year cicada, Magicicada
Insects famous for their 17-year (or 13-year, in southern populations) underground larval development followed by mass synchronized emergence — one of the most-extreme reproductive strategies in the animal kingdom. Several Magicicada species occupy distinct 'broods' that emerge in different years across the eastern U.S. Brood II — last emerged 2013 — covers parts of Staten Island. Next emergence: 2030.
Scientific
Magicicada spp. are [[seven-species-of-israel|seven species]] of cicadas distributed across the eastern U.S. in 17-year and 13-year broods. Adults live above ground for ~6 weeks; nymphs spend the preceding 17 (or 13) years underground feeding on root xylem. Emergence is synchronized across an entire brood within a region — millions of individuals emerge over a 1–2 week window, mate, lay eggs in tree twigs, and die.
The strategy is hypothesized to overwhelm predators by sheer biomass — predator populations cannot expand fast enough during the brief emergence to consume more than a fraction of the cicadas, ensuring most survive to reproduce. Prime-numbered cycle lengths (17 and 13) may further reduce overlap with shorter-cycled predator and parasite populations.
On Staten Island
The borough is part of Brood II’s range. Brood II last emerged across the [[beacon-ny|New York]] region in 2013; next emergence is 2030. The 2013 emergence was widely documented in NYC parks including SI; in the years between emergences, the species is invisible (underground as nymphs).
Adults’ shed exoskeletons, eggs laid in twigs (causing distinctive “flagging” of branch tips), and the loud male chorus during the 2013 emergence are all in living memory for many borough residents. The 2030 emergence will be one of the borough’s most-significant ecological events of the decade.
See also
Auto-generated from this entry’s typed relations: frontmatter, grouped by relation type so the editorial signal isn’t flattened.
- Member of: [[animal]]
- Contained by: [[staten-island]]
Sources
- USDA Forest Service periodical-cicada documentation
- Magicicada.org and Cicada Mania records
- Long-term periodical-cicada ecology and evolution literature (Williams, Cooley)
Rooted in life.
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