About 3,000 kinds of cicadas populate the globe, and
most live conventional lives of a few years' duration. The eastern half
of the United States is home to a unique set of species, called
periodical cicadas, whose members spend 13 or 17 years underground
before suddenly emerging into a frenzied and noisy adulthood.
Periodicals are the glamour girls and boys of the cicada world. And we
are about to greet them again. A few inches below the surface of the
soil, in about 15 states and the District, billions of cicadas that
were spawned in the spring of 1987 are ready to leave their
subterranean homes and taste life in the open air. In a few weeks,
probably in early to mid-May, the cicada nymphs will crawl out of the
ground, shed their skins and unfurl their wings. The males will
out-roar lawn mowers in their search for a mate. The females will lay
their eggs in the branches of trees. Then, beginning in mid-June, the
adults will all die. Prepare to welcome Brood X (that's 10), as a
federal bureaucrat named this batch of 17-year cicadas. Periodical
cicadas last appeared in the Washington area in 1996, when Brood II
came topside. That emergence, while sparser overall, affected Virginia
more heavily than will X, which will largely sidestep the Old Dominion.
The good news is that these insects are almost entirely harmless --
they don't bite or sting, although they can startle. They may make a
few outdoor weddings even more unforgettable than brides and grooms
might hope. The rest of the news is that they are pretty hard to miss.
There is of course the noise. But there is also their charm. Elizabeth
Kraft discovered that after a few days, she was enchanted with the
bugs. "It was really creepy, but it's also amazing. It's an amazing
encounter with nature."