During the late summer of the year, the call of cicadas can be almost deafening and seems to be welcoming fall! In fact, cicadas create one of the loudest sounds of any insect calling for a mate to reproduce. The sound is created by the male and has a double purpose ~ to find a mate and to deter predators. T\In contrast, the sounds of locusts are more of a chirp used for mating and communication with the swarm.  

Over the years cicadas have been referred to as locusts, but that is just not accurate. These two insects are distinctly different.  

  • A locust is actually a type of grasshopper that has the ability to change behavior from solitary to forming swarms of several thousand and traveling great distances creating population explosions. A locust has a very short life cycle. Unfortunately, during their relatively short life, they can cause a lot of damage to crops, trees, bushes and plants.  
  • The cicada on the other hand has a long-life cycle that could be 13 to 17 years. Most of the cicada’s life is spent underground and causes very little damage to crops and vegetation. In fact, the cicada only emerges to breed. After laying eggs in the soil, their adult life purpose is over, and they die. You will see their exoskeletons around and on trees and plants and other objects in the late summer. The short adult life of the cicada is beneficial for other predators, especially birds, as a natural high protein food supply.

Cicadas have been referred to as locusts for many years and the name and confusion probably was due to their emergence in mass at the coinciding of both 13- or 17-year cycles producing millions of insects. These times of emergence were associated by early settlers with the plagues in the Bible in which locusts emerged in swarms and stripped the land of vegetation. The sad part of this story is that a true locust in the grasshopper family still does wreak havoc in regions of Africa, Asia, and the Middle East today destroying vegetation in mass and can contribute to famine in these areas. This is normally caused by environmental changes in those regions.  

Luckily our cicadas in Indiana are peaceful and beneficial in providing food for predators. Also, the nymphs in the soil are busy aerating the soil while they feed underground. Our friend the cicada cannot sting or bite and generally chemical controls are not needed.