Are Cicadas Bugging You?

By Carol Silva

You're paying more for gas than you ever have in your life. America is still at war. But our story that has everyone talking today - is the cicadas!

It seems an army of cicada bugs has invaded the neighborhood around  Deer Lane in East Setauket.

Some folks there find the sizzling, humming sound annoying. Marie Loeber says, "Sometimes my ears are ringing when they are not even there - it's crazy."

And Lillian Adelsky tells us it goes on all day! "All day til about 5. And then they are quiet for the rest of the night - til about 5am and then they start."

But to a lot of us, cicadas are just a sound of summer.

When I hear cicadas, I'm 10 years old again, walking out of my Levitt house in Hicksville, and on my way to swim team practice at Levittown Parkway pool. Cicadas reminded me - there were so many of those long, hot days ahead. And they each lasted so long.

When we did the cicada story this morning, Elizabeth Hashagen said they've been the sounds of the summers of her life too. And sports anchor Erin Colton said she and her best friend Jamie used to see who could find more cast off cicada shells in the walk between their houses.

Here's some of what we found out about the big buggers.

You may hear that cicadas only "return" every 17 years.

That's any single species of cicadas. But there are about 2,500 species of cicada around the world. And each different species comes back at various yearly intervals.

They're recognizable because they're some of the bigger bugs around - 1 to 2 inch chubby insects on average.

They won't hurt you (unless your ears bleed!) - bite or sting you. The Chinese use them in traditional medicine. They spend their earliest life, burrowed one to 9 feet underground - eating plant and tree roots. When they finally emerge as adults, they shed those hard shells you see left behind. In North China cicadas are skewered or stir fried - a real delicacy.

Oh, and about that constant humming, singing thing? It's the male cicada's mating call. Hey, whatever it takes!