If you haven’t seen them yet, you may have heard of them. Periodical cicadas are raging across nearly 20 states in the Southeast and Midwest of the United States.
Trillions of cicadas have hatched this year in a rare double breeding phenomenon, from Oklahoma to Wisconsin to North Carolina and 17 other states.
This year’s two broods, 13-year-old Brood XIX, mostly in the Southeast, and 17-year-old Brood XIII, mostly in the Midwest, haven’t hatched in the last 221 years and aren’t expected to hatch again until 2245.
Thanks to warm ground temperatures and ideal conditions, both brood cicadas have already emerged above ground, and hatching is already in full swing.
This is where you can find cicadas on the ground this year.
Cicada map 2024: See where broods XIII and XIX are expected to emerge.
The two swarms of cicadas were predicted to emerge in a total of 17 states in the South and Midwest. They emerge once the soil eight inches underground reaches 64 degrees. In many states this starts in April and May and continues until the end of June.
The last time two chicks hatched together was in 1803, when Thomas Jefferson was president.
Where have the cicadas already migrated in 2024?
As the brood spreads throughout the Midwest and Southeast, adult periodical cicadas from Brood XIX are currently finishing their emergence, according to Cicada Safari, an app designed to track cicadas that was created by Cincinnati, Ohio’s Mount St. Joseph University.
They have been spotted through the app in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia.
According to the tracking service, Brood XIII has appeared in Wisconsin, Iowa, Indiana, throughout the Chicago area, and in central and northern Illinois around Peoria and Champaign.
What is a brood?
According to the University of Connecticut, a brood is classified as “all periodical cicadas of the same life cycle type that emerge in a given year.”
A brood of cicadas is made up of different insect species with different evolutionary histories. These species may have joined the brood at different times or from different sources. These different species are grouped together under the term “brood” because they are located in the same area and hatch on a common schedule.
How long do cicadas stay above ground?
A cicada’s lifespan depends on the cicada’s breeding type and whether it is an annual or periodical species.
This summer’s two periodical broods are Brood XIX, which has a life cycle of 13 years, and Brood XIII, which has a life cycle of 17 years.
After the male and female periodical cicadas mate and the latter lays the eggs, the insects die just a few weeks after emerging above ground, that is, 3 to 6 weeks after they first hatch.
This means that many of this year’s periodical cicadas will die in June, but some may die as early as late May or July, depending on when they hatched.
According to the Missouri Department of Conservation, annual cicada larvae remain underground for two to five years. These cicadas are called “annual cicadas” because a small percentage of these species emerge as adults each year.
Why do cicadas make so much noise?
Thanks to the calls of male cicadas. According to Britannica, male cicadas synchronize their calls to sing in unison, using them to mark their territories and attract females. They also emit mating calls before mating.
The 13- and 17-year-old chick cicadas chirp cyclically. They’re the loudest, in part because so many of them emerge at one time.