Cicadas

In the wake of North America’s recent solar eclipse, another historic natural event is on the horizon. From late April through June 2024, the largest brood of 13-year cicadas, known as Brood XIX, will co-emerge with a midwestern brood of 17-year cicadas, Brood XIII. This event will affect 17 states, from Maryland west to Iowa and south into Arkansas, Alabama and northern Georgia, the Carolinas, Virginia and Maryland. A co-emergence like this of two specific broods with different life cycles happens only once every 221 years. The last time these two groups emerged together was in 1803, when Thomas Jefferson was president. For about four weeks, scattered wooded and suburban areas will ring with cicadas’ distinctive whistling, buzzing and chirping mating calls. After mating, each female will lay hundreds of eggs in pencil-size tree branches. Then the adult cicadas will die. Once the eggs hatch, new cicada nymphs will fall from the trees and burrow back underground, st...

Curious Kids is a series for children of all ages. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to curiouskidsus@theconversation.com. Why don’t female crickets chirp? – Avery, age 8, Los Angeles Insects communicate in lots of different ways, for many reasons. Some, such as butterflies and beetles, use color, patterns and other visual cues to attract mates or warn potential predators that they don’t taste very good. Others, like fireflies, use bioluminescence – light that they produce in their bodies – to attract potential mates. Still others send chemical signals to interact with other animals and plants, or to defend against predators. Insects also use sound to communicate, most often to attract mates. The ways in which they produce sounds can vary a lot, depending on what insect is making the sound. Ah, there’s the rub Mos...