The last time Brood XIX and Brood XII emerged from underground at the same time, Thomas Jefferson was president
They look a little like cockroaches and have bulging orange eyes, and trillions of them are about to erupt from the earth in much of the midwestern and eastern United States. The emergence of two groups of cicadas will assemble a chorus of the insects not seen in several hundred years, experts say.
The simultaneous appearance of the two cicada broods – known as Brood XIX and Brood XII – is a rare event, not having occurred since 1803, a year when Thomas Jefferson was US president. “It’s really exciting. I’ve been looking forward to this for many years,” said Catherine Dana, an entomologist who specializes in cicadas at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. “For the public, it’s going to be a really special experience.”
There are thousands of species of cicadas around the world but only 10 are considered periodical – having a life cycle that involves the juvenile cicadas living underground and feeding on plant sap for years before emerging en masse to the surface.
This year will see Brood XIX, the largest of all periodical cicada groups, emerge after a 13-year dormancy underground at the same time as Brood XII, a smaller group that appears every 17 years. The emergence will occur in spring, as early as this month in some places, and will see trillions of cicadas pop up in as many as 16 states, from Maryland to Oklahoma and from Illinois to Alabama.
Some people on instagram is gona start quoting the bible again when this comes
Note that these broods are mostly not in the same region, so most places will see a fairly normal amount of cicadas this year.
Eastern Illinois gets both broods, it’s gonna be WILD there.
I am super excited because I am in the overlap. And I get the eclipse! Real banner year for me.
Pretty interesting getting to see these rare but predictable things coinciding and thinking about how it might have seemed like a series of omens to people in the past.
People of the present too. I hope this doesn’t ramp up some conspiracy cult ala QAnon due to the timing of everything. People are already spreading crazy beliefs over the eclipse.
Bracing for huh?
Yeah, I remember when I lost my family to cicadas last time.
Oh wait, that never happened, things were just kind of noisy off and on for a while and everything was fine.
I don’t think anyone is bracing for this.
The areas with both broods(my area) may have hazardous road conditions, their squished corpses are slippery.
The last one we had about a decade ago was pretty crazy. They were everywhere and it was noisy everywhere. I live next to some woods/prairie, so I am expecting to get the worse of it. Not terribly concerned, more excited.
Instagram recipes since they’re edible.
Peter Gregory tried to warn us. Should have bought sesame seed futures!
