No matter how you feel about cicadas, whether you don’t mind having them around or find these insects annoying, they’re not going anywhere right now.
But it seems their time is soon up.
Cicadas have been buzzing for several weeks in many Chicago-area communities, leading some to wonder if they will disappear in the coming days.
In some areas this probably will be the case.
Cicadas have a lifespan of approximately four weeks. So for many places that have been dealing with hordes of noisy but relatively harmless insects for some time, the end is probably near.
Dr. Gene Kritsky, dean of behavioral and natural sciences at Mount St. Joseph University in Cincinnati, who has been tracking the emergence in the United States and particularly in Illinois, said the emergence would likely last at least until mid-June.
“Adults will continue to sing loudly until mid-June, then decrease towards the end of June,” he explained.
In a May 29 interview with NBC Chicago, the professor said the cicadas could continue to emerge for another 10 days.
Kritsky noted that the number of cicadas emerging from the ground would decrease over the next five days, from approximately May 30 to June 3. However, this won’t mean the end of the noise or sightings. Indeed, the cicadas will still have to live their life cycle on the surface.
So where have they been seen the most? And the least?
Illinois residents are getting creative with the cicada explosion many are currently experiencing, including one woman who photographed a hilarious “day in the life” of a cicada.
A map of cicadas that tracks sightings across the United States shows that some of the most frequent sightings have been reported in suburbs west of Chicago, particularly near the Downers Grove area. The Oak Park area also saw a higher number of sightings, as well as some southern suburbs around the Palos Park and Park Forest areas and northern suburbs like Lake Forest and Highland Park.
While some communities are coming to an end, the cicada frenzy for others may not be over yet.
Experts have long predicted that emergence would be uneven.
“You have to keep in mind that they only emerge from the subtree,” Kritsky told NBC Chicago in February. “And so, if you’re in a forested area and they’ve already laid eggs there, it could be quite dense. But in many cases, we find that these cicada emergences are relatively patchy. Clearcutting forests for agriculture, clear-cutting forests for urban development – all of this reduces cicada egg-laying sites.
Sightings in the Chicago area spiked in mid-May after several days of warm weather.
Warm temperatures over the weekend of May 18-19 likely triggered an increase in emergence. Experts have long insisted that this measure would come into effect once ground temperatures reach 64 degrees.
The historic emergence of 2024 involves two broods of cicadas – Brood XIII and Brood XIX – emerging simultaneously. These two broods of cicadas of 13 and 17 years have not appeared together for over 220 years.
NBC Chicago
