May 18th 2024.
Exciting news, Chicagoland! The periodical cicadas have officially arrived. These large insects, who were last seen in the area 17 years ago, have emerged in large numbers in certain pockets of the city and suburbs. If you happened to walk down certain streets on the Far Southwest Side on Saturday, you would have seen cicadas covering the sidewalks and trees like a blanket.
Stephanie Adams, the plant health care leader at the Morton Arboretum, calls this a magnificent display of natural systems at their finest. It's an opportunity to truly appreciate these creatures. Adams and her team at the arboretum first noticed the cicadas on Monday, but by Friday, they were crawling all over certain areas. Due to warmer weather, the insects appeared about a week earlier than expected. According to Adams, the emergence time can be affected by even the smallest changes in soil temperature.
Adams also explains that the emergence time can vary in different neighborhoods. If a known host tree is located in a sunny area, the cicadas may emerge earlier. This year, we are experiencing a rare double emergence, as the cycles of the 17-year and 13-year cicadas have aligned for the first time in 221 years. This overlap will result in the appearance of both Brood XIX, which appears every 13 years in the Southeast, and Brood XIII, which appears every 17 years in northern Illinois. This phenomenon last occurred in 1803.
While Brood XIX will not be emerging in Chicago, they will be visible in central and southern Illinois. It's interesting to note that periodical cicadas only exist in two other countries - Fiji and India. For nature-lovers Luke Van Schaik and Yvonne Rae, this was a perfect opportunity to witness the cicadas in action. They drove six hours from Ontario, Canada, to Illinois with their children over the weekend. They were delighted to see their 8-year-old and 3-year-old playing with the cicadas, letting them crawl up their arms.
"We thought we'd take the kids to get some deep dish pizza, see the sights in Chicago, and then see how many cicadas we could catch," Van Schaik said with a laugh.
Luckily, these cicadas are harmless to humans, although female cicadas may cause some damage to young trees as they lay their eggs. In fact, they are even edible! Beverly resident Keith Lewis, who is a self-proclaimed bug enthusiast, was thrilled when he first spotted the cicadas in his yard on Friday. His walkway on South Bell Avenue was covered in tan shells left behind by the cicadas. For Lewis, these insects hold a special significance as they mark the passage of time. He can't help but feel nostalgic.
"The last time the cicadas emerged, my son was 4 years old. Now he's 21. It's a milestone for me, it really is," Lewis shared.
Lewis has been using the Cicada Safari app, a platform launched by researchers to track the historic double emergence. He even made cicada-themed T-shirts to celebrate their arrival. He is truly excited and trying to make the most of this rare event. The periodical cicadas have a life cycle of about four weeks, and we can expect to see them until June. However, most neighbors have yet to hear their signature singing, which usually begins a few days after their mass emergence.
One of Karolyn Kuehner's favorite things about cicadas is their singing. The Morgan Park musician finds comfort in their chirping and trilling sounds. "I enjoy the sound. I was hoping we'd get both broods, because they have different songs. One sings higher than the other. I think it's beautiful," Kuehner shared. As she mowed her front lawn on Saturday morning, she had to be careful not to disturb her young crabapple trees, which were wrapped in delicate, protective netting. She first covered them 10 days ago. Meanwhile, her oak tree was buzzing with cicadas, but that didn't bother her one bit.
"It's just part of the cycle of nature. I think it's particularly lovely to have this in the city," Kuehner said.
Further north, in Northbrook, resident Linda Vering was trying to dodge the cicadas in her driveway. They first appeared earlier in the week and are already starting to fly. "We're trying to be careful not to step on the newly emerged ones, but it's kind of tricky," Vering said. "I have even had a cicada fly into my hair before, which is quite unpleasant." She joked that the Chicago area has been experiencing one natural phenomenon after another this year.
"It's like a second eclipse," Vering laughed. "First, we had the eclipse, then the northern lights, and now the cicadas."
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[Generative AI is experimental.]
