Billions of Brood X cicadas crawled out of the ground last summer, and their offspring aren't expected to appear until 2038. Except, there might be some late to the party.
Mt. Saint Joseph Dean of Behavioral and Natural Sciences Gene Kritsky says some Brood X members might make an appearance this year. He says it happened the last time Brood X came out in 2005.
"They were probably eaten as soon as they came out, but enough came out to be noticed. You may have heard that cliché 'I never got cavities until I starting going to the dentist'? Well, we never had cicadas coming out in off years because we never looked."
Kritsky says several states have already reported emergences. "Next week, here in Cincinnati we're going to be seeing some 80-degree temperatures. I am predicting that we will see periodical cicadas emerging. Not in the big numbers of a big year."
Kritsky says it could be because of climate change, or it could be nature mixing things up to keep the species going. He says he hopes people who downloaded the Cicada Safari app last year will use it again this year to report what they see. It allows people to send pictures of cicadas along with the location. Nearly 200,000 people got the app last year, and it's been updated for this year.
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