Ask SAM: Will cicadas visit us this year? journalnow.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from journalnow.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Jun. 1, 2021 , 12:45 PM
The billions of periodical cicadas now crawling, fluttering, and singing from trees in the eastern United States have roused a throng of humans as well, who are mapping the insects and timing their emergence in what may be the country’s longest public science tradition. Using a free app called Cicada Safari, more than 150,000 people so far have uploaded geotagged photos of cicadas, helping scientists track their emergence after 13 to 17 years underground.
The insects are an ideal target for science-inclined amateurs unmissable and mysterious at the same time. “We just don’t know what’s going on in their life” underground, says Douglas Pfeiffer, an entomologist at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. With just a handful of scientists trying to understand a natural event both massive and rare, aid from amateur scientists is invaluable. In recent years, community reports have caught the formation of new populations, helped study the
Billions of cicadas may be coming soon to trees near you ctpost.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from ctpost.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
A big event in the insect world is approaching. Starting sometime in April or May, depending on latitude, one of the largest broods of 17-year cicadas will emerge from underground in a dozen states, from New York west to Illinois and south into northern Georgia. This group is known as Brood X, as in the Roman numeral for 10.
For about four weeks, wooded and suburban areas will ring with cicadas’ whistling and buzzing mating calls. After mating, each female will lay hundreds of eggs in pencil-sized tree branches.
Then the adult cicadas will die. Once the eggs hatch, new cicada nymphs fall from the trees and burrow back underground, starting the cycle again.
Giant Brood of Billions of Insects Set to Emerge in US in Mass Synchronized Event
JOHN COOLEY & CHRIS SIMON, THE CONVERSATION
15 MARCH 2021
A big event in the insect world is approaching. Starting sometime in April or May, depending on latitude, one of the largest broods of 17-year cicadas will emerge from underground in a dozen states, from New York west to Illinois and south into northern Georgia. This group is known as Brood X, as in the Roman numeral for 10.
For about four weeks, wooded and suburban areas will ring with cicadas whistling and buzzing mating calls. After mating, each female will lay hundreds of eggs in pencil-sized tree branches.