Two cicada broods that emerge on different timelines will meet this year in a natural occurrence that hasn’t happened since 1803.
According to the New York Times, Brood XIII emerges every 13 years and Brood XIX emerges every 17 years. This year their timelines will coincide, bringing what could lead to trillions of bugs in the midwest starting in April.
Floyd W. Shockley, an entomologist and collections manager at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, stated, “Nobody alive today will see it happen again. That’s really rather humbling.”
Cicadas are known as natural tree gardeners and also feed various species of birds. They don’t bite or sting and are known for their music.
Gene Kritsky, a retired professor of biology at Mount St. Joseph University in Cincinnati, told the New York Times, “They’re very important to the ecosystem in the eastern deciduous forest.”
Kritsky, the author of several books on cicadas, including “A Tale of Two Broods,” noted that Louisiana, southern Arkansas, Alabama, Mississippi, northern Georgia, and up into western South Carolina will be the first to experience periodical cicadas.
Then North Carolina, eastern Tennessee, northern Arkansas, and western Kentucky will also experience a wave of cicadas. But the strongest affected areas, displayed on a cicada map by the New York Times will be felt by Missouri and Illinois.
Other rare cicada events have offered a glimpse of what is to come. The Missouri Department of Conservation reported that in 1998 Brood 4 and Brood 19, emerged together for the first time since 1777. As projected this year, these were also 13 and 17-year broods.
The South Bend Tribune reported one resident admitted to shoveling cicadas with a snow shovel and that he couldn’t hear the neighbor’s lawn mower over the music of these helpful tree-tending bugs.