When the temperature is right, those nymphs will leave their holes and make their way back to the bark of the nearby tree to shed their skin, a kind of sheddable exoskeleton known as an exuvia. In their soft, whitish post-shedding form, the cicadas will wait for their new adult skin to harden and darken to their signature black. The cicadas are highly vulnerable during time (it usually takes 30 minutes to an hour), and should be avoided to make sure they survive the process.
Be a bug tracker
Under optimal conditions, there may be as many as 1.5 million cicadas on a single acre of land. How concentrated their populations depends largely on how developed the local area is. These insects can and will emerge in urban, suburban and rural places alike.
The Brood X cicada will soon hatch in Michigan after 17 years - what to know
By Jack Nissen
FERNDALE, Mich. - Every 17 years, the Brood X cicada emerges from its underground dwelling to blanket Northeast and Midwest America, including parts of Michigan.
Every 17 years, the ubiquitous shrill returns as the inch-long bug with orangish-red eyes dig itself out of the ground where it s been feeding on tree sap to search for a mate.
The Brood X Cicada, which emerges every 17 years from the ground. (Courtesy of the National Park Service)
The last time the estimated hundreds of billions of cicadas graced the U.S. with its presence was in 2004. Which means they re expected to return this summer.
Have you heard the buzz? After 17 years of living underground feeding on sap from the roots of plants, one of the largest broods of cicadas will be emerging soon to lay their eggs in trees.
Brood X, or the Great Eastern Brood, will spend 2-4 weeks in late May and early June courting, mating and flying. The eggs they lay will hatch 4-6 weeks later. Their presence will be hard to ignore, as cicadas can emit sounds between 80 and 100 decibels, equivalent to a low-flying airplane or a lawn mower! You can expect to see them in Ohio and about 14 other states as soon as the weather reaches 64 degrees. Their offspring will head back underground and will not be heard again until 2038.
Photo via iStock/pixelpup
People need to chill out about cicadas. That’s the advice I got when I called Dr. Paula Shrewsbury, a professor in the University of Maryland’s entomology department, to ask her about last minute yard preparations. (You should cover your young trees in mesh netting, by the way.) She stressed that cicadas do more good than harm, and gave three reasons why you shouldn’t fret over them:
Cicadas help the environment. At the end of their life cycles, cicadas fall from the trees and decompose. That enriches the soil, plus “they provide nutrients to the trees that they were feeding on, so they’re going to help the trees in that way,” Shrewsbury says.