Morgan Watkins: Week 5 Recap

This week we spent time figuring out how to catch the Brood X cicadas. The males make the strangest distress call that sounds like a little scream when you try to grab them and it’s a bit frightening. While the females lack the organs to make these distress sounds, they still frantically flutter and try to get away. It’s unnerving trying to catch them. However, once we got the hang of it, it was cool trying to determine which of the three species of Brood X cicadas each one belonged to. We were able to sort them into the three different species and attempted to record their different calls. It would be interesting if females actually make ultrasonic sounds that we just can’t hear. Anyway, we have noticed a rapid decline in the number of live cicadas at our sites, so our data collection may be wrapping up soon!