Watch pet cicada join 5-year-old girl on amusement park rides in Ohio
"Both my daughters are very interested and love all things creepy crawly," the girl's mother, Ashlea Jelliffe, said.
A 5-year-old girl is captivating social media users after she took her "pet" cicada with her on a rollercoaster ride in Ohio.
Margot, 5, adopted 'Cade the Cader," a male cicada, while visiting Kings Island amusement park in Mason, about 27 miles north of Cincinnati, her mother, Ashlea Jelliffe, told USA TODAY over email. She spotted the chirpy critter along a walkway in the kids' area of the park called "Planet Snoopy," Jelliffe said.
Cade, who Jelliffe described as a "very friendly and somewhat docile male cicada" accompanied Margot as she sat on various rides in the park, including the Great Pumpkin Coaster, the Grand Carousel, Boo Blasters and Joe Cool's Dogem School.
Watch 'Cade the Cader' ride amusement park ride with Margot
Video shared by Jelliffe shows Cade riding the Great Pumpkin Coaster with his new friend and her sister Skylar, 8. Margot can be seen holding the cicada between her fingers during the ride as it goes up and down the tracks.
"Most male cicadas are a little more rowdy, but he happily stuck around with us for several rides in the park," Jelliffe said.
'Go find yourself a nice girl!'
After a fun evening at the amusement park, the family decided to set Cade free. Jelliffe said the critter was with them for about three hours and spent a "good amount of that time clung to Margot's favorite blue shirt."
Margot and her family then found a nice tree near a fountain in the park where they said their goodbyes and set Cade free, Jelliffe said.
"Margot loves the cicadas, but she also respects (their) short lifespan and need to find a mate," Jelliffe said. "As we set him free, she made sure to tell him to 'Go find yourself a nice girl!'"
Cade is not the first cicada Margot adopted from this season's broods.
"Both my daughters are very interested and love all things creepy crawly," Jelliffe said. "So naturally, the immersion of the large bugs this year struck a chord with them."
The family also has a dog named Piper, a Boston terrier-beagle mix.
What are cicadas?
Cicadas are insects that make a rhythmic chirping or creaking noise, according to etymonline. They emerge in groups called broods.
Cicadas belong to the order Hemiptera, the same one that includes stink bugs, bed bugs, aphids and cicada families, according to Cicada Safari, a research group that crowdsources cicada data and sightings.
Among the cicadas, only the males sing, sounding off a mating call, Cicada Safari reported. After hatching, the immature cicadas or nymphs spend 17 or 13 years underground, feeding on roots, then emerge during the spring and transform into adult cicadas.
The current brood, Brood XIV, is periodical and emerges every 17 years. This year, Brood XIV emerged in late April and early May. Brood XIV is concentrated in the eastern U.S. and cicadas have been spotted in states such as Ohio, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, and North Carolina, over the past few months, as per Cicada Safari's map.
There have been over 1,000 sightings of cicadas in the Cincinnati area, according to the map.
Contributing: Kaycee Sloan, Cincinnati Enquirer / Anthony Robledo, Saleen Martin, USA TODAY
Saman Shafiq is a trending news reporter for USA TODAY. Reach her at sshafiq@gannett.com and follow her on X and Instagram @saman_shafiq7.
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