Cicada Predators
Nearly everything eats periodical cicadas. Birds, rodents, small mammals, mites, even snakes and fish, will take advantage of the bumper crop of food available when the Periodical cicadas emerge. In an emergence year, the mole population rises as the moles feast on the underground cicada nymphs. Songbirds will consume large numbers of adult cicadas, and many more young songbirds survive during an emergence year because the parents can easily find food. Cats and dogs will eat cicadas as well. Many decomposers, such as ants, will feast on the corpses of cicadas.
Fungus
Periodical cicadas are susceptible to the fungus Massospora cicadina. This is the only known specialist parasite for cicadas. This fungus is unique to cicadas and attacks the end portion of the abdomen, sometimes causing the tail end to drop off, eventually killing the insect. This fungus has a 17-year life cycle, timed to coincide with the emergence of the adult periodical cicadas. Experts believe this may be the reason for the 13-year life cycle to have evolved: to avoid the fungus.
Other general types of fungus also effect dog-day cicadas, but they do not appear to be specialized to these cicadas as the Massopora is to the periodical cicada. The fungus can be seen more evenly distributed on the underside of the dog-day cicada’s body.
Cicada Killer Wasps
Cicada Killer Wasps (Sphecius speciosus) are solitary wasps that capture and paralyze dog-day cicadas. This species of wasp does not seem to affect the periodical cicada population because it emerges later in the summer (July & August), too late for the periodicals, but in time for the dog-day emergence.
The female wasp paralyzes a cicada with her sting, carries it back to a chamber in her underground burrow, lays an egg on it, and seals the chamber. A few days later the egg hatches and the wasp larva eats the cicada alive. A single female wasp can dispose of about a hundred cicadas in her four weeks above ground.
Don’t worry if you see these wasps, they may be large, but they're relatively harmless. They rarely sting humans, and the males do not even have a stinger.
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