CICADAS

The year 2021 is the year for Cicadas. They are locust like insects one to two inches long. Most North American cicadas go through a 17-year lifecycle. Once they come burrowing up out of the ground after their 17-year cycle under the ground (about 8 feet under), they surface and begin mating and laying eggs in the branches of trees, this brood will die off. Cicadas remain aboveground for four to six weeks after the first emergence. During that time, males congregate in “choruses,” usually in high, sunlit branches, where they create their noted sound using the ridged membranes on their abdomens called tymbals. Females don’t have these sound-producing organs, so the sound serves to guide the females to the choruses of males. They then meet and mate.
 
Soon after mating, females split the bark of living trees and shrubs and deposit their eggs, usually between 24 and 48 at a time. However, females can mate many times during the course of an emergence and may lay up to 600 eggs before their death at the end of the emergence. The eggs remain in the trees for six to 10 weeks, at which point the juveniles hatch, drop to the ground, and burrow 8 feet into the soil, where they will remain for another 17 years. 

The cicadas that hatch in 2021 will drop to the ground and burrow into the earth for 17 years. There, they’ll feed on the fluids in tree roots until they emerge to breed in May 2038. And so the cycle repeats.

There you have it… Cicadas have been doing this every 17 years for centuries. Who keeps track of all this stuff?

“What is the price of two sparrows—one copper coin? But not a single sparrow can fall to the ground without your Father knowing it. And the very hairs on your head are all numbered. So don’t be afraid; you are more valuable to God than a whole flock of sparrows.” Jesus