Cicadas near your home? Be careful, they could attract copperhead snakes
By Cindy Bae
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DURHAM, North Carolina (WTVD) — It’s hard to ignore the deafening noise of cicadas this spring in Durham County. Some people have even confused the bugs’ chirps for their car alarms going off.
The sheriff’s office has received at least 10 calls for service in the past week about car alarms going off.
“We find no alarms, but actually cicadas,” Durham County Sheriff’s Office lieutenant Tisha Jones said.
The problem prompted this Facebook post that explains that the bugs “sing” rather loudly to attract a mate.
“The sound is crazy,” David Mann said. “I’ve never heard anything like this in all these years we’ve been here.”
Mann can drown out the sound of summer but for some snakes like the copperhead snake, the cicada’s song is irresistible.
“Snakes tend to be mostly on the ground … and cicadas crawl out of the ground and up trees,” Chris Goforth of Citizen Science said. “There aren’t necessarily more snakes. It’s just that they’re out where we can see them a lot better because they’re taking advantage of this amazing food source that’s available.”
The cicadas we’re seeing at this time of year are likely periodical cicadas that have emerged after 13 years. They tend to be reddish-orange in color, unlike the annual cicadas that are bigger and greener, according to Goforth.
“They are insects that mostly live underground for that 13-year period, and then they come out all at once, like billions of them,” Goforth said.
According to Goforth, the cicadas will not harm you but the copperheads they tend to attract could.
“They’re going to go to those places where the cicadas are available,” Goforth said. “So they’re a little bit more visible they’re going to be around the base of trees a little bit more than they normally would be.”
However, Mann has his own method of taking care of the venomous snake.
“I have a shovel that’s by my fence over there, that’s my snake shovel,” Mann said. “So if I see one I’m going to kill them.”
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