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Cicada Facts to Know as Brood X Arrives in 2021 After 17 Years

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Photo: Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP (Getty Images)

While they’re gnarly-looking bugs, cicadas pose no harm to humans. That is, as long as you’re a heavy sleeper.

To woo mates, male cicadas create a ruckus. The sound of cicadas can be nigh unbearable, even with earplugs in. The otherworldly chorus isn’t cicada yelling. Rather, it’s the result of vibrations. Allow the Chicago Botanic Garden to explain:

“Male cicadas will call females to mate by vibrating their tymbals, which are two rigid, drum-like membranes on the undersides of their abdomens. Different species of cicada produce different songs. Males respond to the calls of other males, creating a chorus of ‘singing’ cicadas that can be deafening. Females do not have tymbals and are incapable of producing the same sounds.”

Cicadas, they’re more like us than we thought.

After mating, females can lay up to 400 eggs. Those eggs hatch, and the larvae fall to the ground where they burrow in for a 17-year wait to reemerge. The adults, meanwhile, die. Poetic.


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