Emerging cicadas are so loud in one South Carolina county that residents are calling the sheriff’s office asking why they can hear a “noise in the air that sounds like a siren, or a whine, or a roar.”
The Newberry County Sheriff’s Office sent out a message on Facebook on Tuesday letting people know that the whining sound is just the male cicadas singing to attract mates after more than a decade of being dormant.
Some people have even flagged down deputies to ask what the noise is all about, Newberry County Sheriff Lee Foster said.
The nosiest cicadas were moving around the county of about 38,000 people, about 40 miles northwest of Columbia, prompting calls from different locations as Tuesday wore on, Foster said.
Their collective songs can be as loud as jet engines and scientists who study them often wear earmuffs to protect their hearing.
After Tuesday, Foster understands why.
“Although to some, the noise is annoying, they pose no danger to humans or pets,” Foster wrote in his statement to county residents. “Unfortunately, it is the sounds of nature.”
The nosiest cicadas
Not only are they loud they also stick their noses where it doesn’t belong!
They know your secrets and you better pay up or your trees are toast.
… do cicadas have noses?
For some definitions of noses.
Do they have a weird bump over their mouth in the center of their face? Some do yes.
Do they inhale or exhale with it? No.
Has it got anything to do with their sense of smell? Also no.
What do they use it for? Well functionally it’s more of an upper lip than a nose.
How do they smell? Awful. But also they use the chemorezeptors in their antennae to smell/taste the air.
I’d like to subscribe to Cicada Facts.
Did you know
Cicadas can sexually transmit a fungus that will infect the new host, pump it chock full of amphetamins and lets it run on a no-sleep-all-action hypersexual rampage where the fungus completely replaces the sexual organs of the cicada so when it has sex with another one that other will become infected and do the same?
Pfff, that just the script to the last of us part 3.
Who wants to know?
I think we all know how the cops will handle it.
I remember being a kid and whacking them out of the air with a stick. There were hundreds.
These cicadas better be careful. That recent incident with the acorn suggests that cops will start blasting at unexpected sounds of nature.
That recent incident with the acorn suggests that cops will start blasting because of unexpected sounds of nature. They shot the car not the tree, we’re the ones that need to be afraid here!
Imagine waiting underground for years just finally emerge to find your mate and turns out you have some fungus that makes you into a sexual monster and then …
Once the cicadas emerge from the ground, they molt into adults, and within a week to 10 days, the fungus causes the backside of their abdomens open up. A chalky, white plug erupts out, taking over their bodies and making their genitals fall off.
I could have lived my whole life in peace not knowing that and you just had to ruin it didn’t you?
I live in Columbia and haven’t heard any cicadas yet! Maybe they’re on the way? I always liked the way they sound lol
Last year (or the year before?) there was a major cicada emergence in Indiana. You couldn’t hear a thing in our neighborhood, but if you drove a mile down the road, it was deafening. I think it probably depends on what sort of trees you have and how many.
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We usually get a ton of them here, but the weather has been really weird lately so I’m thinking they’ll probably show up soon once it warms up again
I think there is also a ground disturbance component to it. I noticed that around me, new neighborhoods didn’t have a lot while older neighborhoods and undisturbed areas had a lot.
Are those cicadas black?
Sprinkle a little crack or meth on them, then you’ve got probable cause. Or just say “it smells like weed around here”
I think he was on PCP, Johnson
Funny enough if you’re in Illinois there’s supposed to be a co-emerging this year. I was going to check it out but sadly they don’t overlap enough for it to be noticeably louder.
the whining sound is just the male cicadas singing to attract mates
I think I know why people in South Carolina are REALLY complaining about the cicadas.
Shit’s gonna go real bad if a cop holds a cicada down by putting his knee into its back
Bunch of dumb hillbillies.
It’s probably the city people moving into an area with fields and forests that have never heard cicadas before.
Ppfffft. You obviously haven’t heard Australian cicadas. Those little fuckers’ll kill ya.
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Are you suggesting that cicadas are migratory?
Oh boo-fucking-hoo. If i could handle it when I was a child then I think you grown up snowflakes can suck it up and deal.
There’s really no need for this.
