08/02/2024
**New design to commemorate the billions of cicadas that will emerge in the US this year in a rare double-brood**
This spring, two different broods of cicadas — one that lives on a 13-year cycle and the other that lives on a 17-year cycle — will emerge at the same time from underground in a rare, synchronized event that last occurred in 1803 when Thomas Jefferson was president.
Billions of the winged insects will make an appearance across the Midwest and the Southeast, beginning in some places in late April.
This year’s dual emergence is a once-in-a-lifetime event. While any given 13-year brood and 17-year brood can occasionally emerge at the same time, each specific pair will see their cycles aligned only once every 221 years. What’s more, this year’s cicada groups, known as Brood XIII and Brood XIX, have made their homes adjacent to one another, with a narrow overlap in central Illinois.
It’s going to get really loud, male cicadas produce their distinctive clicking sound by vibrating an organ near the base of their wings. The females produce a similar, quieter sound with their wings. Cicadas from Brood XIX in 1998 were recorded producing calls of up to 75 decibels that’s equivalent to standing next to a vacuum cleaner or a hair dryer.
The broods will emerge in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Wisconsin and Virginia.
There could be as many as 1.5 million cicadas per acre, which brings the brood population into the trillions.
These types of cicadas are periodical insects that spend most of their lives underground feeding on tree roots. After 13 years or 17 years, depending on their brood, the cicadas will tunnel to the surface to reach maturity and engage in a monthlong, noisy search for a mate.
Cicadas typically surface in the spring once soil reaches a temperature of around 64 degrees Fahrenheit (17 Celsius)
