First Brood X cicadas begin to emerge near Ann Arbor -- millions more expected

[catbyte]

Posted May 24, 2021

By Jacob Hamilton | [e-mail]

SUPERIOR TWP – Brood X cicadas have begun to emerge in Michigan -- and Ann Arbor is at the epicenter.

Hundreds of the eerie red-eyed insects were visible just east of town at Kosch-Headwaters Preserve Monday morning, climbing the small saplings and teasle reeds that line the trails to molt their exoskeletons before emerging as adult insects.

In the coming weeks, the adult male cicadas will join in a chorus make their distinctive siren-like call, mating with females who lay their eggs in twigs and branches before dying within a period of about two months. Once the eggs hatch, the nymph cicadas will drop to the forest floor below and burrow underground, not to emerge for another 17 years.

snip

Brood X - the most widespread of the periodical burrowing cicadas - last emerged in 2004. Other broods of burrowing cicadas have appeared between then and now, but their range is usually limited to the East Coast and other Midwest states like Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, according to Howard Russell, an insect/arthropod diagnostician at Michigan State University.

“This only happens once every 17 years and it’s a force of nature,” Giacobazzi said. “I think it’s amazing.”

https://www.mlive.com/news/ann-arbor/2021/05/first-brood-x-cicadas-begin-to-emerge-near-ann-arbor-millions-more-expected.html