Cicada Safari

Mount St. Joseph University

About this app

People have been recording periodical cicada emergences for nearly four centuries. These maps have been critical in verifying the cicadas’ long life cycles and the relationships of the broods to each other.

Help us map the 2021 emergence with Cicada Safari! Your submitted photos will be used to determine the range of Brood X.

Ratings and reviews

I was pretty excited to see sightings popping up in my area so I went out looking. Read all the instructions about how to take photos and videos. The directions weren't super clear, but I figured it out. Rather than use my cell data to take photos in the app I took pics and then planned to upload them at home. Sadly, nothing will upload because it says there is no geotag. This was not in the instructions and there is definitely a geotag attached. So...big bummer for me.

Just installed tonight so the jury is still out but I'm confused already. I thought a good place to start was with my profile. I selected edit, and tried to add a pix, like a profile pix, it let me choose it but won't upload it. Not a good start! Hopefully the functionality of the app will improve tomorrow when I'm out running errands and perhaps finding opportunities to add pictures of the little guys! Stars will be added when things improve!

App is a bit clunky but they're working on it (it's a research project and I applaud the effort). App developer is responsive to emails. One potential improvement would be to use EXIF data or photo geotags to place images on the map. Right now it appears they post where uploaded, not where captured. Another idea might be use a heatmap to display sighting frequency and overlay markers at a closer zoom level.

What’s new

- Updated for newer versions of Android