This summer was all about cicadas.
After spending the last 17 years underground, Wisconsin’s periodical cicadas had just a couple months to find a mate and lay their eggs (which would eventually hatch and head back underground). They had to make the most of this summer — a feeling both WUWM’s Lina Tran and Jimmy Gutierrez can relate to.
For Lina, this summer was also one marked by transition: She just moved to Chicago and is saying good-bye to Milwaukee.
“I found these periodical cicadas to be weirdly relatable,” she says. “When I learned that Lake Geneva is the place to experience Wisconsin’s own brood, I had to drive down there.”
The emergence was so special that she convinced Jimmy — infamously, not a fan of bugs — and their respective partners to go to Lake Geneva’s first Cicadapalooza and experience it for themselves.
“What is summer if it’s not love, big transitions and a little buggy?” Jimmy says.
When the day of the festival came, it poured in Lake Geneva. But that didn’t stop people from coming out to celebrate the cicadas.
Here’s what some of the attendees had to say about the event.
Samantha, a self-professed “bug nerd”: These cicadas are just about ready to vote. They’re getting to the point where — anybody that’s here, it’s a good chunk of [their] life that they’ve been down there, underneath our feet. Not even knowing that they were there.
Ari Maurer, a UW-Madison entomology student: I think that’s something a lot of people relate to, spending their entire lives waiting for that perfect time [to emerge]. But unlike cicadas, we have to realize that we don’t just have a vibe like that or a feel. We gotta take our own initiative. Cicadas take the gigantic jump from underground onto trees, and we can do the exact same thing. I really love them because they’re cute and they’re derpy and they’ve gone through a lot of hardship to get to where they are. But ultimately, when they come out, they’re beautiful, and they come out strong and they come out in groups. I think that’s really neat of them.
Erica Morales, New Mexico State University entomologist: When we first arrived here, we went to go get some pizza in Chicago. And we are walking around in the parking lot. And they are everywhere. It was perfect. I was kind of in heaven, and the first thing that one does to my finger, as I picked one up — they say they don’t bite. Which they technically don’t bite or sting, but let me tell you, they pierce. One landed on my finger and she’s trying to put her little proboscis — her mouth part — into my finger. You can see her trying to pierce my finger, trying to get some phloem from there, but she’s not going to get any. She thought I was a tree. Best compliment ever.
