THE ANSWER
According to the Nature Conservancy, Brood X will see trillions of periodical cicadas in 15 states, including “parts of Delaware, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Minnesota, North Carolina, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia and Washington, D.C.”
There are 15 broods, or groupings, of periodical cicadas in the eastern United States.
“Twelve of those are 17-year cicadas, and three are 13-year cicadas, but they’re designated by Roman numerals,” according to Dr. Paula Shrewsbury, professor of entomology at the University of Maryland.
THE QUESTION
THE ANSWER
George Washington University Postdoctoral scientist Zoe Getman-Pickering told WUSA’s VERIFY team in April that Brood X cicadas will begin to emerge at night near the beginning of May.
Throughout Earth’s history, climate change has pushed animal and plant species into extinction. About 250 million years ago, global warming triggered by massive volcanic eruptions wiped out 96 percent of all marine species during the Permian period, as Science magazine details. Now, some researchers think climate change did the same to ancient humans.
A research team led by Pasquale Raia of the University of Naples Federico II in Italy cross-referenced nearly 3,000 archaeological records of human species with temperature, rainfall and other weather data over the past 5 million years. Their findings, published in One Earth, suggest that global cooling episodes influenced human evolution, driving three of modern human’s cousins to extinction.
Cherry blossoms may be the official, undisputed harbingers of spring in the region, but once every 17 years, the little pink blooms have to share the seasonal stage with a somewhat less photogenic rival: the red-eyed, yellow-winged Brood X cicada.