Many strange and amazing cicadas, known as periodical cicadas, are going to appear in very large numbers after many decades, and perhaps even centuries.
But this time, Western Pennsylvania will not have this cicada increase.
Every 13 or 17 years, the periodical cicadas emerge from underground with a very loud collective song, like jet engines, making them the rulers of nature's calendar.
In Pennsylvania, Brood XIV cicadas will appear in 2025, and Brood II will come out in 2030.
Cicada expert John Cooley from the University of Connecticut called the upcoming unusual cicada double occurrence in some parts of the United States “cicada-geddon.” The last time these two broods emerged together was in 1803 when Thomas Jefferson was president.
Cooley said, “Periodic cicadas are not subtle.”
These black bugs with bulging eyes are different from their greener cousins that appear every year. They stay underground for many years before emerging, covering houses with shed exoskeletons and making the ground crunchy.
The largest brood in the country, named Brood XIX and emerging every 13 years, is about to pass through the Southeast, already creating numerous boreholes in the red Georgia clay. The bugs come out when the ground warms up to 64 degrees (17.8 degrees Celsius), which is happening earlier due to climate change, as confirmed by entomologists. The bugs are initially brown but darken as they mature.
Following the appearance of a large number of insects in Georgia and the rest of the Southeast, the cicada cousins that emerge every 17 years will flood Illinois. This group is called Brood XIII.
University of Maryland entomologist Mike Raupp said, “You have one widely distributed brood in Brood XIX, but in the Midwest, you have a very dense historically abundant brood, which is Brood XIII.”
University of Maryland entomologist Paula Shrewsbury noted, “And when you put those two together… you would have more insects than anywhere else at any other time.”
These hidden cicadas are found only in the eastern United States and a few other small areas. There are 15 different broods that come out every few years, following 17- and 13-year cycles. These two broods might overlap, but they probably don't interbreed, according to entomologists.
The numbers of cicadas that will emerge this year — averaging around 1 million per acre over hundreds of millions of acres across 16 states — are astonishing. Cooley estimated that there would be hundreds of trillions, maybe even quadrillions, of them.
An even larger combined emergence will occur when the two largest broods, XIX and XIV, come out together in 2076, Cooley said: “That is the cicada-palooza.
The extremely high numbers of cicadas can probably be attributed to evolution, as suggested by Cooley and several other entomologists. University of Maryland entomologist Mike Raupp mentioned that the periodical cicadas are good meals for birds, and there are so many of them that they won't be eaten to extinction. He even has a cicada cookbook called “Cicada-Licious.”
A lot of birds will have plenty to eat, and the cicadas will come out successfully, according to Raupp.
Cicadas use 13 or 17-year cycles to stay underground, which are prime numbers. These big and unusual numbers help them avoid predictability and survive against predators.
When cicadas mate and nest, they can cause problems for young trees and nurseries by weighing down and breaking branches, as mentioned by Shrewsbury.
Periodical cicadas search for vegetation near mature trees to mate, lay eggs, and then go underground to feed on the roots. This makes American suburbia a haven for periodical cicadas, according to Mount St. Joseph University biologist Gene Kritsky, an expert on cicadas.
Devices for making noise
When cicadas come together in trees and start singing to attract mates, it can be tough on the eardrums. It's like a singles bar, with each species having its own mating call.
Kritsky, who created a Cicada Safari app to track cicadas, described the sound of the entire tree as screaming.
Cooley brings hearing protection because the sound can become very intense.
Cooley mentioned that the sound reaches up to 110 decibels, which is similar to putting your head next to a jet and can be painful.
Kritsky imitated the male singing during courtship, describing how the male and female interact and communicate.
Then the mating takes place, with the female laying eggs in a groove in a tree branch, and the cicada nymph eventually falling to the ground and digging underground to reach a tree's roots.
Cicadas are unusual in that they feed on the tree’s xylem, which carries water and some nutrients. The pressure inside the xylem is lower than outside, but a pump in the cicada’s head allows the bug to access fluid it wouldn't otherwise be able to get from the tree, as per Carrie Deans, a University of Alabama Huntsville entomologist.
Cicadas extract so much fluid that they have a lot of liquid waste to expel. They do this by using a special muscle that creates a jet of urine flowing faster than in most other animals, according to Georgia Tech’s Bhamla.
T.J. Rauls in Macon, Georgia, found a cicada while planting roses and holly. A neighbor had already shared a picture of an early-emerging cicada.
Rauls named his cicada “Bobby” and is anticipating more of them to come.
Rauls found it exciting and described it as bewildering due to the cicadas' noises.
In the near future, a huge number of strange red-eyed periodical cicadas, with pumps in their heads and jet-like muscles in their rears, will emerge—an event not seen in decades and possibly centuries, marked a biologist from Georgia Tech as visually peculiar wonders of evolution.
