By Dan Klepal
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Gene Kritsky, College of Mount St. Joseph biology professor, inspects damage to a limb of a maple tree from the emergence of the cicadas 34 years ago. The Cincinnati Enquirer/MICHAEL E. KEATING

DELHI TOWNSHIP - Evolution moves quickly in Gene Kritsky's eyes - in 13- and 17-year cycles.

And it was evolution in the fast lane that brought Kritsky, one of the world's foremost authorities on the biology of the periodical cicada, to the College of Mount St. Joseph in 1983.

Cicadas are the perfect evolutionary study for the biology professor because the noisy, red-eyed insects are lengthening their life cycles and changing their developmental schedules right before his eyes. Kritsky's work will hit a super lotto of sorts when billions of Brood X cicadas begin emerging across Greater Cincinnati.

Kritsky says the cicadas will start popping May 14, give or take five days, when the ground temperature reaches 64 degrees. His prediction is based on reams of historical data on emergences, coupled with weather reports from those years and this month's forecast.

The average ground temperature Thursday was 59 degrees.

"This is an opportunity to convey my love of biology beyond the classroom," said Kritsky, 50, the first entomologist in the world to predict that periodical cicadas would emerge four years early, in 2000. Kritsky thinks that is an example of one cicada generation evolving into a new generation.

"My classroom shouldn't stop across the hall," he said. "It should extend everywhere."

This year, it does.

Kritsky's work has focused a world spotlight on the tiny Delhi Township college of 1,200 students.

It also has turned Kritsky, a small man with round glasses and a Darwinian beard who thinks fast and talks faster, into a worldwide cicada spokesman.

Reporters with the British Broadcasting Corp., the CBS Evening News, The New York Times, The Washington Post, National Public Radio, U.S. News and World Report, two different Japanese television stations, National Geographic Explorer and Le Monde newspaper in Paris - to name a few - have all come calling in recent weeks.

Mount St. Joseph President Sister Francis Marie Thrailkill said the cicadas provide wonderful exposure for the college, but benefit Kritsky's students the most.

"Gene uses the cicadas as a teaching opportunity, and a wonderful research opportunity for his students. He has been on the forefront of developing them as researchers. It's great for the students to see where research can go."

But the unusual insect is only the most well-known facet of Kritsky, whose interests range from history and baseball to cooking and honey bees.

A find in Fritos

Born in Miami, science for the future biologist started in the second grade when he found a toy dinosaur in a bag of Fritos Corn Chips. Although he didn't particularly care for school, books and fossils were his passion.

Kritsky stumbled upon his first science project and a second lifelong passion when a childhood fossil-hunt led to the discovery of a beehive.

"My interest in bees is similar to my interest in cicadas - it's the history there," Kritsky said.

Next year, Kritsky will have his sixth book published - on the history of beekeeping. His latest book on cicadas, Periodical Cicadas: The Plague and the Puzzle, published by the Indiana Academy of Science, will hit stores in a few days.

The author of a regular column in the American Bee Journal, Kritsky is trying to re-create a beehive from 1823 to find out if, as the Victorians believed, cooler temperatures in a hive produce pristine honey.

"Gene is perpetually busy," said Jessee Smith, Kritsky's wife of three years. "He's just a very high-energy person."

Smith met Kritsky when she took his biology class in 1994. Smith, an art major at the time, was so impressed by Kritsky and his class that she switched majors to biology.

"He's just such a wonderful teacher,'' she said. "It was one of those classes you look forward to. He's got a wonderful sense of humor and great depth and breath of knowledge."

Smith said cicadas have become a big part of their life together over the past few months. Her husband has a cell phone just for media requests and interviews. A bug enthusiast herself and designer of cicada jewelry she sells over the Internet, Smith said she doesn't mind all the cicada talk around the house.

"I guess cicadas will make up an inordinate amount of our conversation every 17 years," she said.

Kritsky had pretty much settled on a career in biology by his senior year in high school, when his father took him to see the famous anthropologist Margaret Mead. He met her at the end of her lecture.

"I was like uh ...uh," Kritsky said of one of the few times in his life he was speechless. "I managed to ask her if she had any advice, and she told me to learn how to write and take pictures for the public.

"The most famous scientists in the world at the time were Carl Sagan and Margaret Mead. And the thing they had in common is they appeared on the Johnny Carson show."

Broadcast appearances

The coming cicada emergence has led to an evolution of sorts for Kritsky himself, from small-college biology professor in a department with 54 students to international cicada spokesman.

He's had seven appearances on international television or radio programs and 25 appearances on nationally broadcast programs. He'll soon be on the lecture circuit.

Kritsky is not really looking forward to the devolution from media darling to simple college professor and cicada researcher.

"I consider (the media) part of the family now," Kritsky said. "But Jessee's getting a little tired of it. On a slow night, we only have one TV station (crew) show up at the house."

E-mail dklepal@enquirer.com