Subject: Cicadas being decapitated
Geographic location of the bug: Western Pennsylvania
Date: 05/25/2019
Time: 09:10 PM EDT
Your letter to the bugman: I have found several dozen cicada decapitated very close to their malted skins. What is causing the decapitation?
* Note I lined the bodies up in pic…
How you want your letter signed: Dirk Rupert
Dear Dirk,
Your image is the first one we are posting this year of the emergence of the Brood VIII, the population of Periodical Cicadas, incorrectly called 17 Year Locusts, which has just begun to emerge in western Pennsylvania, Eastern Ohio and West Virginia according to Cicada Mania. For years we have been posting images of decapitated Cicada heads, but our images have been of the heads left behind when a predator has eaten the body. Your case is different because the perpetrator did not eat the nutritious body, so it wasn’t hungry. We suspect a house cat might be responsible for your mystery.