Cicada invasion in the USA

This video is called Invasion East Coast! Billions of Cicadas Will Swarm the Region after 17 Years Underground!

From Wildlife Extra:

Vast cicada swarm due in USA

April 2013. Residents of north-eastern USA will soon observe an event not seen since 1996: The coming mass emergence of the Brood II cicadas.

1.5 million per acre!

After spending 17 years living underground as nymphs, these large, winged insects will emerge to live out their short adult lives above ground. As many as 1.5 million cicadas can live per acre, and they are noisy too, they will certainly be heard: Cicadas have a unique call that can reach a whopping 90 decibels.

As alarming as this sounds, cicadas are actually quite harmless. In fact, they have positive effects on plants and provide food for many different animals, including birds, mammals, reptiles, even other insects.

Brood 2 cicadas appear every 17 years across New York, Washington, D.C., Connecticut, Maryland, North Carolina, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. They measure just 1½ inches long and live for just 2 weeks. They live underground for 17 years, feeding on the juices of tree roots, before emerging to mate once every 17 years (That’s a long wait. Ed.). They live above ground for just 2 weeks before they die.

There are several broods that appear once every 13 or 17 years in a very unusual life cycle, and when they overlap, it must be like the biblical plague.

From Cicada Mania blog in the USA:

May 1, 2013

The Brood II Emergence Has Begun

It has begun!

Over on the Entomology-Cicadidae cicada group a gentleman named Tommy Joseph has posted photos of periodical cicadas which have emerged this week in Greensboro, North Carolina This makes sense as North Carolina is the southern-most state with a Brood II population, and southern states warm up before northern states.

There are also plenty of sightings (mostly nymphs, but some adults) on the Magicicada.org map. Don’t forget to post your sighting there.

Related articles

• The swarm: stand by for the deafening cicada orgy (newscientist.com)
• 17-Year Cicadas Primed To Emerge (npr.org)
• Brood II Cicadas in the news and on the move; non-Brood II Cicadas feel slighted (dcmontreal.wordpress.com)
• The Cicadas are Coming, And So Are the Terrifying Spores That Eat Them Alive (blogs.smithsonianmag.com)
• Cicadas, the Wedding Crashers Who Can Jitterbug (bloomberg.com)
• This Spring’s Cicada Invasion (pigpedigree.com)
• 17-year cicada hatch to bring billions of bugs to U.S. East Coast (ctvnews.ca)
• Cicada invasion generates early buzz (cosmiclog.nbcnews.com)
• Cicada invasion on the way as insects with bulging red eyes crawl out of the earth after 17 years underground (independent.co.uk)