Cicadas and Emerald Ash Borers Friday, May 18 – Monday, September 3, 2007 For seventeen years, an extraordinary species of cicadas has been living underground in the Chicago area. They have been quietly sucking sap from tree roots and biding their time– until this June when their mysterious internal clocks will give them the urge to emerge. The cicadas of Brood XIII will then climb out of the ground in enormous numbers and march up every plant in sight, then flip upside-down so that their adult forms can burst out with large red eyes and fully formed wings. With musical mechanisms in their abdomens, male cicadas will congregate in choruses to sing extremely loudly. If you live near any wooded areas in northern Illinois, you won’t be able to miss the sights and sounds of these creatures this summer. The Field Museum’s Cicadas exhibit will feature specimens from the Museum’s collections, a remarkable video of a 17-year periodical cicada emergence, a letter from Charles Darwin to a Chicago-area scientist about cicadas, and charming art objects from other cultures depicting cicadas. Visitors will understand and marvel at the life cycle of the longest-living insect species in the world and their astonishing behavioral adaptations. Visitors will also learn about another insect in the news lately— the emerald ash borer, which is wreaking havoc on ash trees throughout the Chicago region. Specimens of emerald ash borer adults and larvae, as well as examples of infected ash tree bark, will help visitors identify this invasive pest that could potentially destroy one fifth of the trees in the Chicagoland area. View Return of the 17-Year Cicadas video (file size=11.3 MB) (c) Roger Hangarter & Sam Orr, 2006 To access the above feature, you will need Quicktime for your browser This exhibition was organized by The Field Museum. Related Images To view a larger image, click on an image thumbnail.