There are certain sounds that seem to follow us through our entire lives. For me, one of those is the sound of cicadas.
It is hard to think of a Mississippi summer without hearing that familiar hum coming from the trees. It was there during childhood summers, through my teenage years, and it is still there today. Sometimes you become so accustomed to the sound that you hardly notice it, but when you stop and listen, it can take you right back.
And then there were the shells.
Most Mississippi kids probably remember finding those little brown cicada shells clinging to a tree trunk. We would carefully pull them off and hook their tiny legs onto our shirts, wearing them around like some strange little summertime badge.
Those shells actually have a name: exuviae. Cicadas spend most of their lives underground as nymphs. When it is finally time to become an adult, a nymph crawls out of the ground, climbs a tree or another nearby surface and sheds its outer skeleton, leaving behind the perfectly shaped shell we find stuck to trees. (MSU Extension Service)
Mississippi has an impressive variety of cicadas. According to Mississippi State University Extension, the state has more than 20 species of the cicadas commonly seen and heard each summer. Often called annual or “dog-day” cicadas, they begin appearing around June. Despite the name, an individual annual cicada can spend several years developing underground. Their generations overlap, which is why we still see and hear them every year. (MSU Extension Service)
The singing we associate with cicadas comes from the males, which use their songs to attract females. Different species have different songs, meaning that the chorus coming from the trees isn’t necessarily one sound at all. It may be several species calling at the same time. (MSU Extension Service)
Mississippi also has something particularly special when it comes to periodical cicadas. There are only three broods of 13-year cicadas in the world, and Mississippi is the only state where all three occur. Our next major emergence will be Brood XXII in parts of southwest Mississippi in 2027, followed by Brood XXIII in much of western Mississippi in 2028. (MSU Extension Service)
Maybe that is part of what makes cicadas so interesting. An insect can spend years beneath our feet before finally emerging, climbing a tree and leaving behind that little shell so many of us played with as children.
Summers change. We grow up, move away, come home, and watch another generation of Mississippi children make their own summer memories. But somewhere in the trees, that familiar sound keeps going.
For many of us, the song of the cicada is more than the sound of an insect.
It is the sound of a Mississippi summer.
