🚨 ARTHROPOD OF THE DAY 🚨

Cicadas are particularly loud this summer. The difference between 2024 and the previous year is that the hatch rate of the 13 and 17 cicadas will coincide. This means that in only one season, there might be billions of cicadas. This is the first time this has happened since 1803, and it won’t happen again until 2245; therefore, this is historic. These two broods are adjacent (but not significantly overlapping) in north-central Illinois.

The 13-year periodical cicada - Brood XIX (also known as The Great Southern Brood) is the largest periodical cicada brood in North America, covering at least a dozen states in the Southeast. The 17-year periodical cicada - Brood XIII (also known as the Northern Illinois Brood) has a reputation for being the "largest emergence of cicadas anywhere,". The periodical insects, more closely related to aphids than locusts, have black bodies, red eyes and translucent, orange-tinted wings.