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They're Here! The 'Bourbon Brood' Cicadas · Talking FACS

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  Welcome to Talking FACS, what you need to know about family,
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  food, finance, and fitness.
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  This nationally recognized, award-winning podcast is hosted by the University
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  of Kentucky Family and Consumer Sciences Extension Program.
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  Our educators share research knowledge with individuals, families,
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  and communities to improve quality of life.
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  Hello, and welcome to Talking FACS, where we share information you can use
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  to strengthen your family, your community, and our state.
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  I'm your host, Mindy McCulley, Extension Specialist for Instructional Support
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  with Family and Consumer Sciences Extension.
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  We are housed in the Martin-Gatton College of Agriculture, Food, and Environment.
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  Perhaps you've heard of the bourbon brood, and this might be something that's
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  really piquing your ears right now.
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  But it might not be something that you typically associate with bourbon.
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  We're talking about periodical cicadas. My guest today is Dr.
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  Jonathan Larson, an assistant extension professor with the Department of Entomology. Welcome, Jonathan.
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  Thank you so much. I'm excited to be here. I think this is going to be a fun
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  discussion because I don't normally get to talk bugs on Talking FACS,
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  and they have such a fun title. We love alliteration.
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  And of course, anything bourbon sounds like fun, but I'm not sure that bourbon
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  and bugs really are my favorite topic.
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  But tell me about the bourbon brood. The bourbon brood, it's kind of a name
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  that we came up with over in Department of Entomology for this particular emergence of cicadas.
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  We thought it would kind of brand it as Kentucky Proud.
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  Bourbon is something that we strongly associate with the Commonwealth, of course.
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  And the reason that we're kind of doing that is that this year's periodical
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  cicada emergence, which is focused on Brood XIV.
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  Brood 14 exists in multiple states kind of across the Appalachian region.
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  But I would say the epicenter truly is Kentucky. It extends across many of our 120 counties.
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  And a lot of places in Kentucky this summer are going to see periodical cicadas.
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  So we wanted to kind of brand it, make a little more excitement for it within
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  the state, and get people to associate it with Kentucky.
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  I don't think that it's fully taken off as a marketing term quite yet,
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  but maybe as things kick off and the cicadas start to sing, we'll see that change.
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  So probably the Department of Tourism isn't going to pick up on Burden Brood
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  as people come to see our cicadas, right?
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  They haven't called yet. And what I really want to do is like get in with the bourbon industry.
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  One of my dreams with this whole sort of shenanigan was to get a hold of like,
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  I don't know, you know, Jim B.
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  Walter, one of those companies and be like, maybe you could put some bourbon in a barrel this year.
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  And we open it in 17 years when these cicadas come back out again.
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  Like, you know, this whole charade. See what happens, right?
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  Yeah. See what happens. Maybe put a couple of cicadas in there with it.
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  Pickle them. It'll be fun. Yeah. Yeah, I'm picturing Matthew McConaughey at
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  Wild Turkey pulling out the bourbon brood and going, all right,
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  all right, all right, all right.
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  All right, all right. We got a cicada here. Yeah, that's right.
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  I haven't worked on my McConaughey in a while. Yeah, we're going to have to. Yeah, you and me both.
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  So, the bourbon brood is emerging right now.
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  Correct. Actually, as of this morning, when we were recording,
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  I got my first email from an extension agent over in Breathitt County, Reed Graham.
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  Shout out to Reed. And he sent me the first images that I have received this
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  year of adult cicadas emerging from their Nymphal shells.
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  And so I don't have a trophy or a certificate made up for him quite yet,
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  but I probably will send him something.
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  It's quite exciting for me. I like it when this kicks off because it has a bit
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  of an air of mystery to it.
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  They usually start to emerge at night. It is usually at the end of April or
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  the start of May, seemingly here in Kentucky nowadays.
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  And so over the next couple of weeks, they're really going to start coming out
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  in force and people will strongly begin to notice it.
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  So where are we going to see them? Well, I know that you said the agriculture
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  agent in Breathitt County recognized them first, but are we going to see them
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  going south to north or are they going to come west to east?
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  Where are we going to see them? It's a great question. So one of the things
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  that I guess I like to talk about with this is that with periodical cicadas,
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  we always talk about the broods. So this is brood 14.
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  The broods are these separate groups of cicadas that emerge in distinct years from each other.
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  So there are lots of 13-year cicadas and 17-year cicadas below the ground at any given point.
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  But they're kind of separated into these groups that will emerge in separate years.
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  So their eggs aren't literally all in one basket. It helps to sort of protect them chronologically.
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  And so brood 14, it covers a lot of Kentucky.
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  The counties that experienced brood X back in 2021 could still see some emergences this year.
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  And kind of the Louisville up into the Cincinnati metropolitan area,
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  there should be some emergences there.
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  But I would actually say this is going to be strongest in kind of central and
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  eastern Kentucky, the counties that kind of make up the bluegrass region and
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  then the Appalachian region.
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  That's where we expect to see most of the cicadas.
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  The western portion, like the Purchase region and some of those areas,
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  they probably aren't going to see much action this year.
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  They were a part of some of those counties of the emergence that happened last
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  year that dominated a lot of the news cycle because there was a double brood
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  emergence, which is quite rare.
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  But this year, I think most of our counties kind of in horse country and coal
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  country are going to see a lot of cicadas.
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  So do the different broods have characteristics that distinguish them or do they all look the same?
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  They all look the same. That's a good question. They all look the same.
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  So we have 17 and 13-year species.
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  The 17-year species are kind of the older, according to the records and the
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  fossil record that we have.
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  And then the 13-year species are a little bit newer. but
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  sort of visually they all look vaguely the same they're black
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  they have clear wings with kind of orange trim
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  on them and then bright red eyes they do
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  look distinct from the annual cicadas that people are probably more familiar
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  with that emerge in the latter half of the summer those are usually kind of
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  green and brown and black mixed together like camouflage and are much bigger
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  these periodical cicadas are slightly smaller and they have that more distinct
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  kind of flashy coloration to them.
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  And I associate cicadas with a sound. The periodical ones, do they have the
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  same sound as the ones we hear later in the summer?
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  Absolutely. So cicadas are part of the smaller group of insects that rely on
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  auditory cues to communicate with each other.
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  Most insects, when they talk to one another, it's through chemical signals.
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  They make those pheromones that do certain things.
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  Yeah. But when we think of singing insects, we think of crickets and grasshoppers, and then cicadas.
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  And yes, the periodicals are very well known for their ability to sing.
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  It is the male that makes the sound that we associate with cicadas.
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  They have a mostly hollow abdomen, actually.
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  And then if we look on the sides of their body, they have these muscles that
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  they can flex called timble muscles.
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  And as they vibrate them very, very quickly, they create this reverberation
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  of sort of a tinny grinding noise inside their body. and then they can release it in this huge burst.
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  They sing a few different songs. The males will sing first a song that recruits
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  other males to a tree that they're singing in.
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  Then once they're all hanging out together, the males will sing like in a giant rock band, kind of.
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  They really want to attract females to that tree, and they're using each other to do that.
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  Once the females begin to arrive, the females can't sing, but they can click
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  their wings when they are approaching a male and say, I think of you as a potential
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  mate. and then the male will sing a courtship song.
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  And that, you know, it's like a guitar guy at a party kind of.
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  And if she accepts him as a mate, she'll click her wings again and then they'll
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  initiate the mating process.
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  This is actually pretty lethal. A lot of the males at this point at the mating
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  process, they'll begin to die. It takes a lot of energy to sing and a lot of energy to mate.
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  And so they just start dropping like flies, basically. There are things that
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  are eating them all at the same time.
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  It's kind of a huge macabre Mardi Gras. That's the way I like to describe it.
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  There's lots of mating, there's lots of singing, and then there's lots of dying.
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  So the singing that they do, does that attract some predators?
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  Do they hear that too? Yes. So that's one of the reasons that most insects don't
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  create a lot of noise is because they're trying to hide.
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  They don't be very obvious in the environment.
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  But with the cicadas, yeah, lots of things do notice them.
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  They do blend in fairly well in the tree, so they don't get picked off super easy.
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  But a lot of them do get eaten. And a lot of them die. One of the reasons they
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  come out in these numbers of millions and thousands is that we call it predator satiation.
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  A lot of the ones that are going to come out now and in the next couple of weeks,
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  they are going to get eaten.
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  But then the turkeys and snakes and foxes and dogs and cats and everything else
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  that's consumed them, eventually they get sick of it. I think about food.
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  I think about sometimes you eat the same thing four days in a row and eventually
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  if I never see a burrito again, it'll be too soon. It's kind of the same thing with the cicadas.
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  So the ones that come out later in the summer, they tend to survive at a higher rate.
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  As you said, they're on the trees, and are they affecting the nature that they are living in?
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  They do have some positive effects, and then they do have some negative effects.
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  So positively, it's kind of like a mass year of acorns.
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  The next year you see a higher population of squirrels in certain things.
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  With the cicadas, we can see surges in wild turkeys, for example,
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  the next year, because this is just a real heavy surge of protein going into
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  the environment that wasn't available in other years.
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  So there are some benefits. For plant life, there can be some detriments,
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  particularly for smaller plants, so smaller trees.
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  Most plants are not of interest to cicadas. They don't feed very much as adults.
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  They feed as nymphs below ground. They feed in the tree root zone, sucking sap out.
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  But then once they're above ground, it's all about singing, it's all about mating,
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  and then it's all about creating that next generation.
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  So they're not going to damage your garden. They're not going to damage your
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  favorite hostas or any of your plants in your landscape.
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  If you have a newly planted oak tree or fruit tree in your yard that you put
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  in maybe last fall, that is something that could potentially be harmed.
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  When the female lays her eggs, she cuts these little slits in the branch.
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  She'll use the sort of tenderest, newest growth at the top of the tree to push
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  her eggs into these slits.
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  And if they do this to small trees, there's lots of breakages.
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  And then there can be a loss of leaf tissue that would be used for photosynthesis.
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  So you can actually right now go online and buy cicada netting,
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  which is a smaller gauge than bird netting and you can protect some of those smaller trees.
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  If you have big majestic oaks and maples and elms and maybe even ash,
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  if you're still holding onto one of those, these are some common trees that they lay their eggs in.
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  The big ones, the ones that have been around for more than five,
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  six, seven years, they're probably
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  going to be fine. they can handle the egg laying damage that occurs.
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  This has been such a fascinating conversation. So.
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  Before we wrap up, what else can we do with these cicadas?
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  Can we actually eat them? Because I'll keep hearing you can go and eat the cicadas.
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  And I'm not sure that I want to, but there are some people who might want to.
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  So tell me, can we eat these cicadas?
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  Yeah, I really want to get it on like the, what are the calendars and the cards
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  that we use Kentucky game? Oh, yeah.
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  Nutrition calendars. Cook Wild Kentucky. Wild Kentucky, yes.
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  You can eat cicadas just like a lot of insects they're
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  consumable they taste a lot like what you've cooked them
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  in if you were to just cook them and eat them plain they
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  do have a nutty flavor because they've been feeding on trees for
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  some time all right we do advertise some caution just
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  like if you're foraging in nature all the time and eating a
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  lot of things you know they have been in the ground for 17 years
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  that means that they've been exposed to whatever has
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  gone into that soil and so there there is some
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  danger there also people who have a shellfish allergy should
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  not consume any insects there is some cross allergy
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  contamination there and so we don't want people who
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  have a shrimp or other sort of shellfish problem you should not consume cicadas
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  but I've had them i thought they were quite tasty that could have been because
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  i had them prepared by there was a professional chef that did this little thing
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  for a TV show that i was on once and I got to taste them in a variety of culinary settings.
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  But I think they're pretty tasty.
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  So if you eat them in moderation, if your dog or cat eats them, you'll be fine.
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  You can't just go out and gorge yourself though for 12 straight days on cicadas.
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  Because you'll be much like that predator who does not want to ever see them again, right?
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  Right. Oh, and they need to be cooked just like any other sort of organism.
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  We don't want you to eat them raw.
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  And I guess we don't know the proper internal temperature to cook them to, do we?
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  I don't know I don't know that one that sounds like some potential research
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  collaboration yeah we're going to have to work on that one with our DHN partners won't we? yeah.
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  Well I look forward to them being in the butcher block at the exactly exactly and,
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  fresh food case at the market, we can find out. Of course, that's something
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  that's only going to show up every 17 years or every 14 years.
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  So it will be a delicacy, definitely. Yes, it would, yes.
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  Jonathan, thank you so much for this fun conversation. I know that it will certainly
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  be listened to by many people across the Bluegrass.
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  I appreciate the invite, and I hope people go out and experience the wonder
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  of nature this year and get to know those cicadas a little bit.
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  They come and go very quickly.
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  It'll be over before we know it. Yeah, we definitely want everyone to get to
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  know them and get familiar with them so they're ready for the next bourbon brood.
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  If you're just tuning in, you're listening to Talking FACS,
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