Michael Sitvarin News Today

Every state in the union has multiple symbolic figures, but do you know what animal, food or mascot matches with each state?

While the bulk of the Brood X cicadas have been spotted south of Interstate 78, in Montgomery and Bucks counties, Martin Edwards has heard them from Nockamixon State Park in Bucks County to Coopersburg in Lehigh County.

The cicadas are coming. When and where will they arrive in Pennsylvania? Molly Bilinski, The Morning Call © HARRY FISHER/THE MORNING CALL Muhlenberg College associate biology professor Marten Edwards holds samples of cicadas in his office in 2013. A new generation of periodical cicadas are gearing up to pop out of the soil this month, with millions predicted to make themselves known to residents across the region by their characteristic song. This group, Brood X, has been gro...

Molly Bilinski ALLENTOWN — Seventeen years ago, Rick Crist and Michael Sitvarin put 1,000 miles on Crist’s Jeep Wrangler driving to state parks and municipalities, listening for screams. The Muhlenberg College undergraduates, equipped with flip phones, paper and pencils, were working on a summer research project alongside their biology professor, Marten Edwards, mapping the places where periodical cicadas had crawled out from the earth to scream, mate and die. This year, the next generatio...