LINCOLN SQUARE — Do cicadas seem noisier this year?
We thought so, which is why we Googled: "Are cicadas noisier this year?"
Never got an answer to that question, but we did fall down an internet wormhole that at least explained why the insects are so loud.
(Seriously, they can hit 120 decibels, which is rock music territory.)
The scary answer: They are screaming in terror.
Cicadas reproduce in massive numbers because they are super likely to get killed. The species only survives because their predators physically can't eat them all.
Turns out, the insane racket that cicadas make — a sound produced courtesy of the craziest ab workout ever — is one part mating call, one part defensive strategy.
By joining their voices, male cicadas reach a volume that repels birds on the prowl for their next meal.
But escaping death-by-bird only sets cicadas up for a far worse fate. The bugs are also hunted by the cicada killer wasp, which, frankly, sounds like a sociopath.
If you've ever seen a cicada carried off by the Hannibal Lecter of the wasp family, thank your lucky stars you're human, because what happens next is the stuff of nightmares.
After delivering a paralyzing sting, female cicada-killers drag their immobilized prey to an underground chamber of horrors.
The cicada is placed in a torture cell, where the wasp lays an egg on it. When a larva hatches from the egg, it immediately begins feasting on the cicada.
Yeah, if we were a cicada, we'd be screaming too.
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