Trillions of 'Brood X' Cicadas Are About to Emerge Across the U.S. to Sing, Mate and Die.

Here's What to Expect

1. T his coming May, millions of people around the United States will have front -row seats to an

extraordinary entomological event: Trillions of Brood X cicadas across 15 states will emerge almost

synchronously after having spent the last 17 years underground.

2. The males will take up elevated positions, each buzzing as loud as a lawnmower to attract females.

After mating, the adult cicadas will die off en masse just about as quickly as they arrived—likely

sometime in late June or July—while their offspring tunnel underground, not to emerge until 2038,

when the dance will begin anew.

3. Annual, or “dog day,” cicadas appear across the U.S. every summer, when their signature mating

song becomes as much of the seasonal soundscape as a passing ice cream truck.

4. But the cicadas taking center stage in this year’s event—distinctive for their black bodies and red

eyes—are part of a periodical “brood” of the insects that emerge in predictable cycles of 13 or 17

years.

5. This year’s brood, Brood X (pronounced “ten”), is one of the largest and most widely distributed;

its emergence is expected to be all the buzz from New York to Georgia to well west of the

Mississippi River (the Washington, D.C. area is expected to be a particular hotspot). “It’s not

something you can ignore,” says John Cooley, a biologist at the University of Connecticut. “When

they come out it’ll be millions per acre.”

6. It’s unclear why periodical cicadas like those of Brood X emerge in such overwhelming numbers,

though some scientists believe it’s a survival strategy to overwhelm predators, like birds and

snakes.

7. Why they emerge exclusively in prime number year cycles, meanwhile, is what Cooley calls “the

question of the hour.” Either way, Michael Raupp, an entomology professor emeritus at the

University of Maryland, College Park, says the cicadas’ massive cyclical emergence makes them

fascinating to study.

8. As Raupp describes it, this year’s emergence will be full of drama. “There’s going to be birth,

there’s going to be death, there’s going to be predation, there’s going to be romance, there’s going

to be sex in the treetops, there are going to be songs,” he says.

9. A few weeks before their emergence, the Brood X cicadas–each about the size of a typical human

adult’s thumb–will begin creating exit holes in the ground, a sign that they’re getting ready to

emerge.

10. Then, when soil temperatures reach about 64° F, the cicadas will fully dig themselves out. The

males will fly to vertical structures like houses and trees and begin their mating song to woo

females. “It’s going to be a big boy band up in the treetops,” says Raupp. “And once they’re in the

treetops, it’s all about romance.”

11. After mating, the female cicadas will deposit hundreds of eggs into nearby tree branches, then

tumble to the ground and die. The adult males also die off shortly after emerging. Six to eight

weeks later, the eggs will develop into nymphs, which will then fall back to earth and dig

themselves underground.

12. That’s where they’ll spend the next 17 years living what Raupp calls the “dismal existence” of

sucking on plant sap until they’re ready for their turn in the spotlight (according to one theory,

cicada nymphs count the passage of time by monitoring trees’ nutrient fluxes or hormonal cycles).

13. Raupp calls the Brood X spectacle “the Super Bowl for entomologists and natural historians,” but

they may be pretty much the only people looking forward to the show. Cicadas’ buzz can range

from annoying to downright deafening, and while not technically pests, they’re often confused for

locusts, a mix-up that dates back to early North American religious colonists taking them for the

feared insects of the biblical plague.

14. However, cicadas don’t bite or sting, and they don’t devour crops and produce widespread famine—

but their eggs can damage young trees, unless they’re covered in mesh cicada netting.

15. Still, even if they aren’t technically pests, the idea of millions of Brood X cicadas emerging from

underground is enough to give almost anybody the heebie-jeebies–especially people who are

squeamish about insects to begin with. “For people who have true phobias, it might be time to talk

to your counselor,” Raupp says. Or, he adds, “get out of town for a while.”

*Vocabulary

1.dog day

2.prime number

3.heebie-jeebies

4.squeamish

*Understanding

1. What is the remarkable characteristics of Brood X?

2.Their survival strategy is called prey satiation. By coming out in huge numbers, what

will happen the relations between Brood X as victims and predators?

3.What is the lifecycle of Brood X?

4.How do they impact our lives and the environment?

*Discussion

1. The average life of cicadas is 7years and 7 days. They live in the underground for 7years

and appear on the ground for 7 days. What do you think of their life?

2. Are you an insect person? Have you ever had any memory of them, regardless of the

happy or horrible one?

3. Recently less and less insects have been seen in our town. Do you notice any difference

around us compared to before? What do you think the reasons of current situation?

4. Do you have any kind of phobia? Let’s talk about the thing that is hard to deal with.

(For example, arachnophobia, acrophobia, claustrophobia, school phobia, computerphobia,

anthropophobia, mysophobia.)