In Response to: A Cicada Reunion

Thanks for the cicada news. When I was a graduate student doing my thesis on bats at the Auditory Research Labs (at Forrestal), the cicada emergence on campus in 1970 was spectacular. Several of us took advantage of the opportunity to study the cicadas, finding among other things that the sound level within the emergence zone could be 130 dB SPL, which is a weaponization of the calls en mass.  The article we wrote about it is listed here: “Periodical Cicada: Sound Production and Hearing,” by James A. Simmons, Ernest Glen Wever, and Joseph M. Pylka, Science, Jan. 15, 1971: 212-213.  

James A. Simmons *69
Professor of neuroscience, Brown University, Providence, R.I.