“From the northwest corner of a brand new crescent moon, crickets and cicadas sing a rare and different tune,” goes the Grateful Dead song Terrapin Station.

And while the Dead may be the most popular band to include cicadas in their lyrics, the legendary insect has spawned at least a dozen other songs and is mentioned in plenty of books, stories and poems as well.

Cicadas have been around in one form or another since the time of the dinosaurs, with fossils dating back to about 150 million years ago.

Since then, the insects have taken their place in cultural history too. Cicadas, which typically measure about an inch or two long, and are big, fat bugs, have been used as food, money and are appreciated for their song.

Cicadas create a rapid clicking sound as their song. While crickets rub their legs together to make their signature high-pitched “chirping,” cicadas actually use a thin membrane and muscle contraction to create the fast vibration sound.

Cicadas are typically known for hatching only every 17 years, but that is a bit of a misunderstanding. There are actually three types of cicadas, only one of which hatches every 17 years. There are also cicadas on a 13-year cycle. Known as “periodical” cicadas, seven species make up the longer living and more widely known branches of the insect.

According to the state Department of Environmental Conservation, the 17-year cicadas tend to be more northern in their range, while the 13-year cicadas are more southern. However, there is significant range overlap, and the DEC says that both types of periodical cicadas can occur in the same forest.

What a lot of people don’t know though, is that there are annual cicadas as well. While not actually annual – their life cycle takes anywhere from three to five years – and they tend to hatch in much lower numbers.

The periodical cicadas come out in massive hatches, often well into the millions of individual insects. Some people even lament the arrival due to the large volume of noise they create that has been compared to a circular saw ripping through wood.

But the annual ones may just pop out here and there, like the one my stepson found on a poplar tree in our yard last week. The dog day cicada, which is named as such because it tends to come out during the hottest part of the year, was letting its wings dry while still perched on top of its exoskeleton.

Even after scouring the yard, that was the only one we found. The periodical hatches that occur every 13 or 17 years are understandably more of an event than the hatching of a single annual cicada.

All cicadas follow a similar life pattern, it just takes certain species longer to mature. Female cicadas, after mating, will cut a slit in the tree bark to lay their eggs in. Once the eggs hatch, the nymphs, which look similar to the adult insects, drop to the ground and start to burrow.

The burrow holes can be quite large, often as big around as an adult’s finger. The nymphs will stay in the ground for 3, 5, 13, or 17 years until mature. The nymphs feed on the sap from tree roots while maturing.

The nymphs then crawl out of the ground around the tree where they were born. After finding a place to hang out, the nymphs’ exoskeleton will split along its back and the adult cicada will emerge. You can usually find the large exoskeleton still clinging to the side of a tree or plant after the adult has moved on.

Some species of male cicadas will gather in tree tops and use their signature call to call in females for mating purposes. Other males will move around trying to find females.

Cicadas are the longest-living insect in North America, and it is speculated that the long life cycle evolved in response to predators. Praying mantises and an insect called the cicada killer wasp (guess what they like to eat) have life cycles of just a year or two. With cicadas burying themselves in the ground for so long, they can outlast the predators in a particular area and get a jump start on reproducing before the predators find them again.

New York is slated to have a 17-year hatch in 2018, and another one in 2021. And while that’s based on historical hatches, the cicada emergence is relatively local in area. There is actually a hatch this year on Long Island.

The northern Adirondacks won’t see many large 13- or 17-year hatches. But according to historical records dating back to 1923, the southeastern part of the park should have a 17-year hatch in 2030. Probably during the dog days of summer.