Day 576

The "hotly anticipated" brood of 17-year (a prime number, of course) periodical cicadas that emerged from the ground to mate this spring was largely absent from the Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Queens. Staten Island, however, was another story, as evidenced by the countless molted exoskeletons littering the forest floor here in Bloomingdale Park. It's been a banner year for the borough's cicadaphiles, most notably those at the Staten Island Museum — home to the world's second-largest collection of cicadas — which has devoted a yearlong exhibition to the creature.

(Does the photo above make you hungry? If so, you're in luck: just check out these cicada cooking suggestions and then wait 17 years — bon appétit!)