The Brood X, or the Great Eastern Brood, of periodical cicadas will make their return after spending 17 years underground, according to USA Today.
- The “large, winged, kind of scary-looking but mostly harmless flying insects” are widely known for their buzzing sounds, USA Today reports.
Howard Russell, an entomologist (insect scientist) at Michigan State University, told USA Today that the millions of them can gather together and create large sounds.
Only 15 states are slated to see these bugs, including:
- Delaware
- Georgia
- Illinois
- Indiana
- Kentucky
- Maryland
- Michigan
- North Carolina
- New Jersey
- New York
- Ohio
- Pennsylvania
- Tennessee
- Virginia
- West Virginia
- Washington, D.C.
Why now?
According to The Hill, researchers said the cicadas live underground for 17 years because they want to avoid predators.
- “By emerging in the millions all at once, they are too numerous for any predators that do eat them from ever wiping them out. There are so many of them that lots of them will always survive,” Gary Parsons, an entomologist at Michigan State University, explained in a statement.
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The insects will lay eggs that will drop to the ground. The older bugs that just gave birth will die out thereafter. The new born bugs will then go into the ground before they come back in 2038.