Trillions of evolution’s bizarro wonders, red-eyed periodical cicadas that have pumps in their heads and jet-like muscles in their rears, are about to emerge in numbers not seen in decades and possibly centuries.

Crawling out from underground every 13 or 17 years, with a collective song as loud as jet engines, the periodical cicadas are nature’s kings of the calendar.

These black bugs with bulging eyes differ from their greener-tinged cousins that come out annually. They stay buried year after year, until they surface and take over a landscape, covering houses with shed exoskeletons and making the ground crunchy.

This spring, an unusual cicada double dose is about to invade a couple parts of the United States in what University of Connecticut cicada expert John Cooley called “cicada-geddon.” The last time these two broods came out together in 1803 Thomas Jefferson, who wrote about cicadas in his Garden Book but mistakenly called them locusts, was president.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] MeaanBeaan@lemmy.world 7 points 7 months ago

https://cicadas.uconn.edu/

According to Uconn there is no significant overlap between the two broods. So while there will be cicadas in a wider area than normal it's not like there's going to be a bigger density of cicadas. This will likely be no different than any other brood year for most people. And if it's anything like the brood we had in MD not that long ago it's going to be a lot less dense than people are expecting.