Large amounts of 17-year cicadas are expected to make their way from northern Georgia to New York this spring, according to Reuters.
These Brood-II cicadas—that have dark colored wings, black bodies, and red eyes—gradually develop underground during a seventeen-year period.
According to Chris Maier, an entomologist with the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station in New Haven, the Brood II-cicadas—called Magicicada septendecim—should appear in central Connecticut in crowded populations around late May or June.
Maier has had his fair share of time covering the scientific wonders. His first run-in with the tiny creatures was in 1979. They next appeared in 1996. The next time they are expected to appear is in 2030. He also said there first recorded arrival was in 1843.
The cicadas are famous for the sound their males make when it is time to mate. These “songs” are sung when the males have matured.
According to magicicada.org, “Over the course of an emergence, males congregate in "choruses" or singing aggregations, usually in high, sunlit branches. Females visit these aggregations and mate there, so choruses contain large numbers of both sexes.”
"When there's a lot of them together, it's like this hovering noise. It sounds exactly like flying saucers from a 1950s movie," Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Connecticut Chris Simon, said on Thursday. Upon their arrival, the bugs can be seen "on the sides of the trees, on the sides of the house, on the shrubbery - even on the car tires," he said.
The Magicicada species are denser than any other type of cicada—accumulating to as much as 1.5 million per acre.
Scientists believe this species develops huge crowds as a defense mechanism against predators—such as birds, snakes, spiders, and dogs. Cicadas do not sting or bite. However they can be dangerous to small trees if too many feed on a certain plant or lay their eggs in the twigs.
For more information visit, magicicada.org.
