Accessibility links
Scientific Method: The Cicadas Are Coming : 1A What has red eyes, lives underground for years, and screeches all summer long? That would be cicadas. And they're here.

And more are coming.For the first time in over two hundred years, billions of cicadas are digging their way up from underground in a rare biological occurrence.

Scientists are calling it a double brood emergence because two cicada broods will be above ground at the same time. Depending on where you live, you might have already seen them flying around or their infamous exoskeletons skins.

For this installment of Scientific Method, our series where we speak to experts about the latest in the science world, we're talking about cicadas.

Want to support 1A? Give to your local public radio station and subscribe to this podcast. Have questions? Connect with us. Listen to 1A sponsor-free by signing up for 1A+ at plus.npr.org/the1a.

1A

Scientific Method: The Cicadas Are Coming

Scientific Method: The Cicadas Are Coming

Listen · 23:19
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/1198911170/1251113683" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
Enlarge this image

A periodical cicada, a member of Brood X, takes flight in the tree tops in Takoma Park, Maryland. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images hide caption

toggle caption
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

A periodical cicada, a member of Brood X, takes flight in the tree tops in Takoma Park, Maryland.

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

What has red eyes, lives underground for years, and screeches all summer long?

The cicadas are here. And more are coming.

For the first time in over two hundred years, billions of cicadas are digging their way up from underground in a rare biological occurrence.

Scientists are calling it a double brood emergence because two cicada broods will be above ground at the same time.

Depending on where you live, you might have already seen them flying around or their infamous exoskeletons skins.

For this installment of Scientific Method, our series where we speak to experts about the latest in the science world, we're talking about cicadas.

Find more of our programs online. Listen to 1A sponsor-free by signing up for 1A+ at plus.npr.org/the1a.