The Once-Every-17-Years Cicada Swarm, Named "Brood X" Is Coming This Summer. Because Of Course It Is.
NBC News- In a few weeks, a natural spectacle will take place across much of the United States — one that is not found anywhere else in the world. Billions of cicadas that have spent years patiently growing in complete darkness will finally emerge, perfectly in sync, for a raucous party in the sun.
It's been 17 years, and the periodical insects, also known as Brood X, are back.
When the world last glimpsed the cicadas, Facebook was brand new, theaters were showing "Spider-Man 2," and the 2004 Summer Olympics were underway.
Since then, they've been underground, eating.
Beginning in late April or early May, once the ground is warm enough, billions of Brood X cicadas will be seen across a dozen states, stretching from Illinois to the west, Georgia to the south, and New York to the northeast. The young cicadas, called "nymphs," claw their way out of the ground and climb up to shed their skins one last time and transform into adults. They will have only a few weeks to sing, mate and begin the cycle again.
Why not right? In fact, I would actually be surprised if you told me the Cicada army, "Brood X" decided to take this year off since we've had it so fuckin rough as a civilization.
If my Catholic schooling holds correct, there are seven plagues of the apocalypse. Pretty sure a plague originating in a bat (wink wink) and wiping out a few million people worldwide qualifies as one. Now news of the cicadas aka locusts makes two. That means after this summer, we'll only have 5 more to go before we're finally donezo. There is light at the end of the tunnel after all.
I did a lot of fact-checking on this story because I distinctly remember Kate being all over this last spring. The cicadas, Brood X specifically, were supposedly coming above ground to wreak havoc last summer.
Apparently, this only partially happened, due to some psychedelic mushrooms?
Advertisement
There are seven species of North American periodical cicadas, all in the genus Magicicada. Four species live on a 13-year cycle, and three for 17 years.
This year's emergence is a group containing all three 17-year species: Brood X, so named because it was the 10th in an arbitrary naming system designed in 1898 by the entomologist Charles Lester Marlatt.
Brood X has got to be one of the most ominous names for a species of insects that sleeps and eats underground for 17 fucking years before emerging in unison to terrorize farmers and suburbanites throughout the eastern border of the United States.
Why do they wait 17 years exactly? I was wondering the same thing-
Not all nymphs grow at the same rate. For example, one feeding from a tree that had a bad year will need more time. But if all the cicadas wait the full 17 years, it allows the unlucky ones to catch up and bolster the group's numbers.
"Then, there's a kind of feedback loop," Simon said. "If they come out on other years … they'll get eaten by predators. And they also won't be able to find mates."
Take it easy with the #cicadapalooza and #cicadastock hashtags Dave Epstein. This isn't a celebration, or a "treat" as you said. These things eat fucking every piece of vegetation in site. They crash into your windshield when you're driving at night. They hum and buzz so loud at night that it sounds like your ears are ringing. And they only appear every 17 years which is just flat-out creepy and extremely suspicious. I am out on cicadas 100% and you can't convince me otherwise.