The Brood X — a group of cicadas that emerge every 17 years — is set to arrive in the United States in the near future, according to CNN.
As I wrote for the Deseret News, Brood X, or the Great Eastern Brood, is coming back this year, sending billions of cicadas across the country — primarily in the Eastern part of the country.
Cicadas — “large, winged, kind of scary-looking but mostly harmless flying insects,” according to USA Today — are known for their buzzing sounds.
What to expect
Eric Day, an entomologist of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University extension, told CNN that the cicadas are coming soon, and they’re something to watch.
- “It’s all boys calling girls,” Day said, according to CNN. “First you get a few here and there, then what happens is they start chorusing — there’s so many of them that the cicada calls all combine in this huge chorus.”
- “This is a real treat. This is an unusual biological phenomenon. Periodical cicadas only occur in the eastern United States; they don’t occur anywhere else in the world,” he said. “It’s just going to be an amazingly big, big show.”
Why does Brood X emerge now?
Researchers said the cicadas live underground for 17 years to avoid predators. The cicadas lay eggs when they emerge. Those born from these eggs will reemerge in 2038 — 17 years from now, as I wrote for the Deseret News.
- “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.