Roar of the Cicada

Brood X Is Above Ground and Screaming for Love

by Melissa Block

 

• Submit Your Cicada Song Have an original song about cicadas, or one that uses the sound of cicadas? Submit it to NPR.org's All Songs Considered.

   

 

 

Art Silverman, NPR

Mating cicadas.

 

 

 

• Hear the Cicada Mating Call

   Brood X Cicadas in Washington, D.C.
  
  More Cicada Calls:
  
   Magicicada septendecim
  
   Magicicada cassini
  
   Magicicada septendecula (mixed with cassini)
  
  Courtesy University of Michigan Museum of Zoology
   

 

 

Art Silverman, NPR

Smithsonian entomologist Nathan Erwin holds a cicada up to the microphone.

 

 

All Things Considered, May 21, 2004 · The Brood X cicadas have emerged, and many residents in 15 states and Washington, D.C., are waking up in the morning to the roar of hundreds of millions of insects looking for love.

In a busy cicada area, it's estimated there are one-and-a-half million cicada nymphs per acre. The subspecies of cicadas known as Brood X has been underground for the last 17 years, tapped into tree roots, feeding and fattening up. Somehow -- and no one's sure how -- these insects know when it's time to surface and become adults. So in the last year of their 17-year life cycle, when the soil temperature reaches about 64 degrees Fahrenheit, they crawl out of the ground by the billions.

Their goal is to find a vertical surface to climb up; they need to hang vertically so they can split their exoskeletons. Out comes the adult, which unfurls its wings and flies around looking for a mate. The male cicadas do the wooing with a mating calling that, in large numbers, comes across as a high-pitched roar.

After they mate, the females lay eggs in trees and the adults die. Once the eggs hatch, the larvae drop to the ground and burrow into the soil. In 2021, the cycle will repeat.

NPR's Melissa Block talks with Nathan Erwin, an entomologist at the Smithsonian's Museum of Natural History and Scott Harvey, an acoustical consultant with the company Polysonics, who has measured the noise levels of the cicada ruckus.