Someone asked on Twitter the other day how it is that June bugs know exactly when June 1st occurs. He said those hard shelled, reddish brown beetles or whatever species they are, started dive-bombing his front porch right after midnight on June 1.

For that matter, how do cicadas know it’s been 17 years and that it’s time for them to wake up and start making all that racket? The year before my daughter was born was the year of the cicada in Maryland. I’d never been around anyplace that had that many of them. When I was a kid the so called “locusts” came and went, but out where we lived, there weren’t that many. I never really learned why.

But in Maryland, hard-shelled bodies emerged from finger-sized holes in the ground, and attached themselves to anything that stood still long enough for them to climb up and molt, or whatever you call shedding their shell. They emerged, brilliantly colored, (some of them oddly deformed), and the males made their way to the towering oaks in the backyards of our neighborhood. There each sang for a bride, and the circle of life moved on.

How do June bugs and cicadas know when it’s time to come out and play? I guess it’s written into their genetic code. I can’t explain it any other way.