Quit Bugging: Cicada-palooza Looms Over Central Illinois
In the Midwest this spring, it’s about to get loud—with a double dose of visiting cicada broods.
By Katie Compa · April 30, 2024
In a certain part of the U.S. this spring, a movement is afoot: Two broods of periodical cicadas, who’ve spent years living underground feeding on tree roots and probably watching Lord of the Rings too many times, will emerge together to experience a brief flash of above-ground life.
Their genus is Magicicada, which we hope in our modern media age didn’t affect their little personalities in their pupal state.
Other than the impending danger of mediocre card tricks, cicadas are admittedly both a nuisance and gross to look at (unless that’s your type—no judgment!), but they do not pose a significant threat to crops or humans.
In (theoretically) an evolutionary strategy for the brood to survive predators, cicada nymphs emerge from their lifelong hibernation in prime-number years and in huge numbers—sometimes upwards of 1.5 million bugs per acre—such that their predators simply can’t handle the bounty, though they will certainly try. Tl;dr: Let the birds enjoy their Purge Night.
Brood XIX covers the largest geographic area of all the U.S. broods—a large swath of the Southeast—and comes out every 17 years. Brood VIII, a 13-year species, is more concentrated, evidently preferring the corn-fed lifestyle of Northern Illinois, Southern Wisconsin, and Eastern Iowa.
Brood XIX comes to the surface as soon as the ground warms to 64 degrees (17.8 degrees Celsius)—which is happening earlier than usual in the year due to climate change, of course. In South Carolina, residents are already calling the cops on their new neighbors for noise complaints.
Soon, Brood VIII will join them, which means that the eastern middle part of Illinois, where both broods have a presence, is about to see some major insect action. Will the cicada broods fight for territory? Will they mount shedded exoskeletons on tiny pikes as a warning to the feeble humans who think they can involve themselves in a war that goes back generations, if not centuries? No. It turns out there’s no conflict between the broods, nor any indication they can even differentiate between themselves, so it will probably be relatively chill, if indescribably loud.
You might say to yourself, “Who cares?” until you learn that these two broods haven’t been out at the same time since 1803, when Thomas Jefferson was President. Maybe, once they get together, they’ll have some tea to spill.