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St. Charles Park District Outreach Ambassador Pam Otto will delve into the emergence of cicada Brood XIII.
In an event 17 years in the making, Magicicada cicadas will soon be out and about. These long-lived insects have been in the ground, feeding on tree roots since 2007, and have just one more task to complete: find a mate and reproduce. We’ll delve into how these cicadas differ from their annual cousins, their ecological niche, and why it matters. We’ll also discuss possible reasons for their relative scarcity in eastern Kane County.
Pam Otto is the outreach ambassador and naturalist for the St. Charles Park District. She received a bachelor’s degree in foods in business from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a master’s degree in outdoor education from Northern Illinois University, DeKalb. Although she has been chasing snakes since the age of three, she worked in trade publishing for 15 years before her “rebirth” as a naturalist in 1999. Since then, she has worked at the Kane County Forest Preserve District’s Tekakwitha Woods Nature Center, Fox Valley Park District’s Red Oak Nature Center in North Aurora, and joined the naturalist staff at St. Charles Park District in September 2007. She has been telling stories of the natural world to residents, from seniors to preschoolers, to members of civic and social organizations, and to readers of her weekly newspaper column, “Good Natured,” published in the Kane County Chronicle.
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