More Than a Trillion Cicadas Are Coming. Are You Ready?

Cicadas spend the vast majority of their lifetime—more than 90%—underground. But this spring, two broods of more than a trillion cicadas will make their debut above the soil across the Midwest and Southeast in an event that has not happened in more than two centuries.  “When these emerge, it really is a unique, natural phenomenon,” says PJ Liesch, the director of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Insect Diagnostic Lab, who compares the insects’ emergence to that of Monday’s total solar eclipse. “If you think about your entire lifetime, you might only have a few opportunities ever to be able to see an eclipse. And for these periodical cicadas, it’s very similar.” [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] Cicadas have already begun to emerge in some Southern states including North Carolina and Georgia. The insects, which have been living underground for more than a decade, begin to dig upwards when the soil temperature reaches around 64 degrees Fahrenheit or more.  “Once that happens, you often have a decent rain shower , that can be a trigger to cause this emergence. So that’s what we’re starting to see in some parts of the U.S. For us in Northern Illinois and in southern Wisconsin it’s probably going to be another month, month and a half before we see the bulk of our activity at more northern parts of the cicada range.” Here’s what to know about the cicadas. ...
Source: TIME: Science - Category: Science Authors: Tags: Uncategorized News Desk Source Type: news