Billions of cicadas emerging in North Carolina to create rare noise this spring
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CHARLOTTE, N.C. (QUEEN CITY NEWS) – North Carolinians will experience a once-in-a-century phenomenon this spring and summer as two broods of cicadas emerge during the same season.
Brood XIX comes up from the ground to mate every 13 years. Brood XII appears every 17 years. In 2024, both types of insects will surface across the Southeast and Midwest.
“That hasn’t happened since Thomas Jefferson was president,” said Clyde Sorenson, an entomology professor at North Carolina State University.
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Sorenson predicts in the next five to six weeks, hordes of periodic cicadas will come up from the ground to mate and lay eggs.
The distinctive buzzing the insects are known for is the males “singing” for a partner.
“They’re completely harmless and they’re doing these amazing behaviors and making these incredible sounds, and it won’t happen again for 13 more years,” Sorenson said. “So, if you missed it this time, you got to wait. And if you think about it, most of us only get over the course of our lifetime, five chances unless we travel to see this.”
Cicadas are commonly found in the eastern United States. Annual cicadas, or “dog days” cicadas emerge every year, while the periodical cicadas emerge once every 13 or 17 years.
According to the Environmental Protection Agency, cicadas are not harmful to people, pets or garden crops. However, scientists say there are some benefits to the noisy tree-dwellers. When they emerge from the dirt, they can aerate the ground and improve water filtration.
While the insects are alive, they serve as a food source for birds and other small animals. When they die in about three to four weeks, their bodies provide nutrients for the soil.
Sorenson encourages people to not be afraid of the harmless insect but to interact with the creatures with curiosity while they produce an “otherworldly” noise for a short time.
“It’s one of the most spectacular natural phenomena in North America,” Sorenson said. “It happens nowhere else in the world except in eastern North America. No other place in the world, with the other 3,000 species of cicadas in the in the world, do they synchronize their emergences like they do here.”
Researchers predict there will not be a similar double-brood emergence until the year 2245.
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