Blue-eyed Cicadas

There's an article on Foxnews today about a boy finding a "one-in-a-million" blue-eyed cicada. A few years ago, Maryland had an onslaught of several different kinds of cicadas and my children, who are ordinarily freaked out by an ordinary housefly, collected literally HUNDREDS of them. They were in every bughouse we own, in buckets, wagons, pails - you name it, they used it to collect them. We even found a dead one weeks later in the little compartment under the seat of Em's Barbie trike! We found that one while in Connecticut, so my mom was able to take it into school to show her students. Kt even has a shirt that they sold claiming that she survived the Cicadas.

At the time, there was a rumor circulating that a university had offered $5000 for a blue-eyed cicada. I can't remember why, other than it was rare and they wanted to research it. Kt had heard this rumor at school and was bound and determined to find herself one. I didn't listen to much of what she was saying (as I was so totally grossed out by the rather troublesome collection of large insects my children were accumulating!), until she actually found one, right here in our own backyard! After a small amount of research, I learned this blue-eyed cicada was not only not valuable, but they weren't as rare as everyone was claiming. Kt was very disappointed, but she did take that poor thing into school to prove to everyone that she found it! It must have been a long afternoon for that poor cicada, because he died that evening.
I guess it wasn't news enough for Foxnews, but at least we have picture!;-)