Chance to win one thousand dollars entered this nationwide keyword on our website and the
pills that's bills Enter it now, Bill Cunningham, the great American Cicadas are
coming. The cicadas are coming. I can recall about thirty four years ago
I had on a relatively young college professor from Mount Saint Joe, doctor Jen
Kritsky. But by this point is authored, are edited ten books, and
over two hundred and sixty papers on subjects involving entomology, egyptology, evolution,
the history of science, dinosaur biology, insect poetry and insect mythology and more.
Joining you and I now is doctor Cicada, the man that's forgotten more
about cicadas. And all of us know doctor Jean Kritsky more or less retired
from Mount Saint Joe and doctor Jen Kritsky. Can you recall about thirty four
years ago I said to you, let's get together in seventeen years and seventeen
years ago I said let's get together in seventeen years. Now I'm saying to
you again, can we get together again in seventeen years. I certainly think
we can. I'm certainly counting on it. Well, me too, let's
talk about the cicadas. Tell us what is a cicada, where does it
come from, and what it's its history. Well, periodical skaters are fucking
insects that occur only here in the eastern United States and they come out in
incredibly large numbers once every seventeen or in other areas thirteen years on a regular
interval that we can that we can predict like the coopses of the sun,
and try to understand their distribution, diversity and evolution of the broods. Do
you have any reason as to why it only happens in the eastern US.
Well, the piritical skaters are endemic to the eastern deciduous forces, and so
they have cicadas out west, but they're annual cicada. They come out every
year in the small numbers. But these periodical status right now, it looks
like they evolved. The evolution started just as the ice sheets were moving south
before the last ice Age, and that selected for a longer life cycle,
and then as they retreated, that led to the synchronicity of the individual species
and the evolution of the bruds. Now you have other interests, but why
have you decided to become an expert in cicadas because I think it happens every
thirteen every seventeen years. Yeah, a lot of time in between. Why
does doctor Gene Christie, why did you focus on cicadas? Well, I
had two professors and called one undergraduate Frank Young, who was this Indiana's specialist
for paritical skaters, and Loose Stantard, who was the specialist for Illinois and
poitical status. They were my members for undergraduate and graduate school. But the
answer to your question is, I'm a frustrated historian, and when I first
heard about these bugs, I figured there's got to be patterns in history,
and so I use the same tools that historians use and journalists use in evaluating
sources, primary sources, secondary sources together as much historical information about the cicadas
as possible. And when I finished my PC, I had over seven thousand
historic records. Well, now, cicadas are they harmful? Tony Bender is
concerned. Last time they were here many years ago, they got into his
underneath his shirt. When he's cutting the grass. They got into his hair.
He's streaming and shouting running around. Cicadas are eating me. Cicadas are
eating me, or they want to mate with Tony bender. Do the cicadas
eat anything or do they mate with humans? Well, Tony first of all,
doesn't need to worry about it this year, because this year is a
wonderful, interesting year because two broods are coming out simultaneously. But they're going
to miss Ohio. Oh. So he's stayed for a year. But next
year Brood fourteen is going to come out in Cincinnati, especially on the east
side of town. So he's got a year of respite. But for other
areas, for sixteen other states, they're going to be seeing these things.
But no, they don't cause any disease. They don't bite, they don't
sting, they do not mate with us, and they will not carry awhere.
Your children are small pets. One might ask why what is their purpose
and function? If they get together only every thirteen or seventeen years and their
underground waiting, what's their purpose? Well, the purpose of all life is
to reproduce. But what they do when they do come out is very beneficial
to the forest. When they come out of those holes in the ground,
that's like a natural aeration. It allows more water to get down to the
trees during the hot summer months. When they are flying around, they're being
eaten by all sources of predators, and that provides the predators population to survive
better this year. When the female laser eggs, that sometimes causes the branches
to break, and that's like a natural pruting. So the flower set next
year is going to be increased. And when they die and collect around the
base of the trees, they rot, they smell, but all their nutrients
form a nutrient cash surrounding the tree that they died around, and so that's
quite beneficial for the eastern deciduous force. How does the cicada know it is
time to come up? It doesn't have a clock. How do he's underground?
How many inches your feet is he underground? Well, as soon as
the eggs hatch, they immediately go under the ministrop of the ground. In
the underground, they'll free on grassroots three four inches or so for the first
few weeks, and then by the first of the year, after the eggs
hatch, they'll be between eight and ten inches of bowl of the ground and
they'll stay there probably for about eight years. They'll move up three four inches
closer to the surface, and they remain between all five to eight inches below
the ground for the next until they're seventeen or thirteen years to pass, and
they count the years by being able to detect the fluid flow in the spring
when water and minerals are moving up from the xylum tissues up into the branches,
and the trees are leafing out and the flowers are being produced. But
still what we don't know is how do they remember what year it is.
That's still a mystery of science. Well, so take me through the life
span of a cicada. Let's say this cicada has been underground now for about
seventeen years, and he or she I guess there's two two genders. There's
not one hundred and five genders? Are there like two genders? A male
cicada and a female? And then how do they tell me the life span
of a cicada as they begin to emerge, tell me what their life is
like when they come up? What happens? Okay, Well, then they
come up there, the ones that are here in Cincinnati, when they emerge
in the ground, they were already seventeen years old, and they start coming
up. But when they emerge, they emerged as a brown nymph, which
they use, which they crawl to the ground. It crawls up the side
of a tree and they lock their little tarsal claws in that tree. And
then the adult cicada emerges from that immature, nimful skin and then it's all
white. They expand their wings. They eventually crawl out of the completely out
of that nimphule skin. The wings expand and they turn black, and then
they walk up to the off of the tree for the next four or five
days before they start singing, and that's when they start flying and what have
you, and the singing courses to attract a mate. The male sing the
females respond by flicking their wings. After mating, the female will lay her
eggs and the terminal ends of tree branches, and then both the male and
the females die six to weeks six to ten weeks after the eggs of in
laid, they hatch and these cute little three milimere white cicada nymphs drop to
the soil and within once they hit the soil. And I've done this though,
I've actually collected the young and watched them get underground. They get underground
within a minute, mostly within thirty seconds because they're extremely susceptible, are are
vulnerable to beetles, spiders, and ants, and so that then they're out
of sight and as far as we're concerned, they're out of mind. But
they're feeding on grass and eventually start sucking on tree roots for the next seventeen
or thirteen years, So from start to finish, as far as from the
time the male and the female urges, it's about two to three weeks and
they're dead and their offspring is underground. Is that it Now, that's a
little longer than that. That takes two full weeks for all the cicadas to
get out of the ground, and the typical adult cicada, if are not
eaten by predator, will last about a month. And so that's from start
for the emergency the last one six weeks, and that's the entire adult that
you'll see adults around and the rest is going to be underground the whole time.
Do only males sing making that noise? Only males do that? Yes,
only the male. They have a structure called a timble, which is
used to make the sound. The females don't have a sound producing structure.
When the male is singing, she can tell the male she's interested by flicking
her wings at the right moment during his mating call. So the male's singing
maybe Garth Brooks tune. Have you ever recorded the male singing or the different
songs being sung by different males? Or is it the same song like friends
in Low Places or something like that. It's the same song, but there
are three variations of it. There's one that's and you can actually try a
sort of thing about how to translated in English. The first mating call,
which sounds like the word at the very drop off at the end, that's
when the female flicks her wings, and the English equivalent be can I buy
you a drink? Then then as he gets closer, you'll start seeing another
song, and that song is basically what's your side? And then when mating
commences, it's the equivalent of saying my place of yours sounds like ooh,
I love to love you baby. You get to that point away you go.
Does the female mate with one male or a whole bunch of males?
She usually mates with. She can mate more than once, but usually the
only ones males. On the other hand, by eighty five set of the
males will make only once uh ten percent of eight twice, five percent of
may three times. Kind of like women in general, I mean eighty five
percent have one, ten percent of two, and five percent of multiples.
Kind of like the way life is. Uh As far as the when the
mating takes place, do they make kind of like animals mate something like that
or is it something something different? It's it's well, they are animals,
and they do have the same they make the way animals do that if you're
talking about positioning. In some cases they're end to end or sometimes they are
look like the letter B as they there as their genitalia are locked in place
and they're just transit. The males is transferring the sperm to the female,
which she has a structure inside are everyone called the sperm of pica, which
actually nourishes and feeds the sperm so that when she starts laying her five hundred
and some on eggs, every one of them is fertilized, all right,
and then they've done their duty and away you go. And uh, as
far as right now we're here Tuesday afternoon. At what point will any of
these broods emerge over the next year or less? What can we look forward
to? Well, I wouldn't say we right now. They're emerging right now
in the southern US. Breod nineteen is actually merging in Georgia and Alabama,
parts of Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and they just started like
two days ago in southern Missouri. Here in Cincinnati, in southwest Ohio,
we have we're surrounded by sall these states of cicadas. But we'll get Brood
fourteen next year, so that'll start probably in early May of twenty twenty five.
Since you're an Egyptologist, doctor jen Kritsky, how were the pyramids built?
I had Zahawe hallrass On about ten years ago. He has his theories.
How were the pyramids built? We know who built them? I saw
the movie The Ten Commandments Moses, But how were the pyramids built? Were
their long ramps half a mile away that came up? Is there a corner
that they turned? Was it extra eat? How were the pyramids built in
Egypt? Well, mostly of this now suggests as they were built with ramps,
they were built by the Egyptians. They were not built by et and
extraterrestrials. And we know that the Great Pyramid for except there's a date on
it that about twenty years constructed? Is it the most amazing thing conceivable that
some I don't know, four thousand years ago individuals living then could build something
that large and so well that survived that long. It's almost extraterrestrial. When
doctor Jen Kritzky, you have more answers than I have questions. But seventeen
years from now will be twenty forty one. Now, I've had you on
every seventeen years or so over these last many decades. Will you promised in
twenty forty one to come on with me to do another show on the next
brute Cicadas? We I'll be in my late eighties and if I'm kicking,
I'll be here. You'll be here. Now, are you going to pass
on your knowledge to some other student at Mount Saint Joe because someone gave you
the baton like thirty forty years ago? Who you passing the baton to in
Mount Saint Joe? Now? Well, I've got several students that are PhDs
in entoology. I've have a nine of them now, and they're doing it
to watch the research on. They've helped the cascado work. They're working at
other insects as well. But what I'm also doing is the creation of an
online archive all the half including the half a million photographs I got in twenty
twenty one when Brew ten emerged, as well as all my research notes and
the notes of my advisors and the other specials. So we're hoping that they'll
passes on onledge just by students, but other inquiring minds. Well. Cicadas
outlive human beings. I think they will because how long have they been around?
You said about fifteen thousand years, because the glacier came down from Ohio
and looking up from the High River about a mile straight up of ice,
and that's been about fifteen thousand years. Is that when their lifespan began?
Well, it turned out the genetic information tells us that the first magic cicada,
the ancestors to the periodical cicadas, lived about four million years ago.
Oh and in the last and during that time is when the large and the
small species split, and then they that was about three point ninety five million
years ago. And then we had the subsequent splits of the large into two
species and the smaller and the eventually two species, and then the last twenty
thousand years or so we're talking about that's when the broods evolved and beings.
Yeah, the human beings that not emerge about five hundred you know, about
five hundred thousand years ago. So cicadas were here before humans and they'll be
here after we're gone. Well, yeah, not only the Magisicata definitely was.
But I had the good fortune of the colleague of mine at Oregon State
University to describe a fossil cicadan nymph that was one hundred and ten million years
old living during the time I'm of the dinosaurs. A cicada nymph located in
Oregon. Well, doctor Jane, it was not in Orgon. It was
in Burma, Burma. But my colleague was in Orgon. A cicaida nymph
was located in Burma. Well, I'll tell you what. You have more
information than any You're the expert on this, and let's do it again.
Next time they emerge. Let's do it again. Maybe you and I can
kick it again in twenty forty one. Sounds like a plan. I appreciate
it, Doctor Jean Kritsky amount, Saint Joe, God bless you, and
God bless America. Doctor Jan thank you very much. You're welcome. Good
talking to you. Let's continue with more and I think maybe in a year
or two or seventeen years from now, doctor Jean Kritsky and I will be
together once again, either in this world or the next. All on news
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