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The group of 17-year periodic cicadas known as Brood X is making quite a noise in Wilkes County, NC. Literally. Our section of the county is particularly noisy, due to tens of thousands of the creatures in every wooded acre. Our house has dense woodlands on two sides and is hilly. The sound echoes back from the hills and now that warm weather has arrived, it almost defies comprehension that so many of the bugs could be in those trees. But, the photo shows a nymph that has just molted on the pillar of our carport. Exoskeletons and live bugs can be seen everywhere. I sell through several stock photo agencies and my Brood IX photos from last year, only two I saw then, began selling regularly in early April. Since then, the Brood IX and X photos, including a closeup molting sequence, have sold 18 times. Imagine my surprise last year, as I read through my copy of Scientific American, to see a familiar cicada picture. Sure enough, my photo of a dead one had been used to illustrate an article on cicada wings. Just goes to show!
