Why Are Cicadas Extra Noisy This Year? Which States Are at Risk of Peak Disturbance
They're loud, they're downright horny, and after 17 years underground, they're back. If you thought spring allergies were the worst thing in the air this season, think again — billions of periodical cicadas from Brood XIV are emerging for a noisy, all-out mating frenzy.
From Tennessee to New York, these alien-eyed insects are already making their presence known, and some are even infected by a fungus that turns them into zombie love machines.
'Nature is stranger than any science fiction that's ever been written,' evolutionary biologist John Cooley told the Scientific American while describing the phenomenon.
Here's what makes this brood so unusual, why you'll hear them from dawn to dusk, and whether you should be worried.
Periodical cicadas emerge in massive, synchronized swarms every 13 or 17 years, unlike regular cicadas that appear in smaller numbers every year or two.
Once above ground, adults have one mission: to reproduce before dying off. Females lay eggs in tree branches, and when the eggs hatch, the tiny nymphs fall to the earth, burrow underground, and disappear — beginning the cycle again, not to be seen for another 15 years or so.
Their return is usually triggered when soil temperatures reach around 64°F, typically between April and June. This year, warming trends pushed their emergence back by about two weeks. In some areas, like Tennessee, they've already started to appear, with sightings reported in mid-May.
The 2025 cohort, known as Brood XIV, isn't just punctual — it's unusually frisky. Many have been infected by a bizarre fungus called Massospora cicadina, which hijacks their bodies, destroys their genitals, and supercharges their sex drive, effectively turning them into mating-obsessed zombies.
Periodical cicadas typically measure about 1 to 1.5 inches long, with wingspans up to 3 inches. They're not especially big, but those bright red eyes definitely grab your attention. Their bodies are black or dark brown with bold reddish-orange markings, and their clear wings are lined with orange veins, making them pretty hard to miss once you spot one.
Despite being frequently mistaken for locusts, cicadas aren't even close. They don't jump, they don't eat crops en masse, and they're not grasshoppers. In truth, cicadas are more closely related to stink bugs and bedbugs, part of the insect order Hemiptera, or 'true bugs.'
Cicadas from Brood XIV are expected to emerge this summer in at least a dozen states across the country. In some areas, like Tennessee, they've already started to appear, with sightings reported in mid-May.
Here's the full list of where you can expect to see and hear them:
Georgia
Kentucky
Indiana
Massachusetts
North Carolina
New Jersey
New York
Ohio
Pennsylvania
Tennessee
Virginia
West Virginia
Even this particular sex-crazed brood poses no real threat to you or your beloved pet. Cicadas don't bite, sting, carry diseases, or secrete anything toxic. They're basically all buzz and no bite (literally).
That said, they do love to make some noise. Male cicadas belt out high-pitched buzzes and clicks to attract mates, and when thousands are singing in unison, the volume can hit around 100 decibels — that's as loud as a motorcycle or a lawnmower. In some areas, the drone can last from sunrise to sunset, so if you're not a fan of nature's noisiest dating ritual, it might be worth investing in earplugs or a white noise machine.
The post Why Are Cicadas Extra Noisy This Year? Which States Are at Risk of Peak Disturbance appeared first on Katie Couric Media.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
CNET
9 hours ago
- CNET
A New 'Stranger Things' VR Game Is Coming. I'm More Than Ready to Head to the Upside Down
Get ready, because Stranger Things is about to go virtual. Fans will have a lot more to be excited about when the upcoming fifth and final season of the Netflix series drops. Thanks to a partnership with Sandbox VR -- the company behind the virtual reality experiences inspired by Squid Game and Rebel Moon -- viewers will soon be able to step into the wild world the Duffer Brothers created. Welcome to Stranger Things: Catalyst, the third collaboration between the streamer and Sandbox VR. The immersive gaming experience will allow players to battle all the supernatural baddies roaming around the town of Hawkins, Indiana. "Players become part of the story as they explore iconic locations from the series, wield unique abilities, and confront terrifying creatures from the Upside Down," the official press release states. Stranger Things: Catalyst is the upcoming virtual reality experience that will immerse players in the supernatural world of the Upside Down. Sandbox VR/Netflix How will this gaming experience level up your highly anticipated return to Stranger Things? Sandbox VR's AAA gaming studio uses "bleeding-edge virtual technology" (their words, not mine), which includes its patented motion-tracking tech that "captures the movements of a player's entire body." Players will use their bodies as the game's controllers -- meaning, all you'll need to do is step into the game's virtual environment, and the action will unfold around you. "Stranger Things, with its rich universe of supernatural phenomena and compelling characters, provides the perfect foundation for a truly groundbreaking VR experience," said Sandbox VR Founder and CEO, Steve Zhao. "Our technology will allow fans to physically step into the story they've watched unfold over the past seasons, creating thrilling memories with friends as they face the horrors of the Upside Down together." Stranger Things: Catalyst will premiere in late 2025. Season 5 of the series will return in three chunks, premiering on Nov. 26, Dec. 25 and New Year's Eve.
Scientific American
18 hours ago
- Scientific American
Spellements: Tuesday, June 10, 2025
How to Play Click the timer at the top of the game page to pause and see a clue to the science-related word in this puzzle! The objective of the game is to find words that can be made with the given letters such that all the words include the letter in the center. You can enter letters by clicking on them or typing them in. Press Enter to submit a word. Letters can be used multiple times in a single word, and words must contain three letters or more for this size layout. Select the Play Together icon in the navigation bar to invite a friend to work together on this puzzle. Pangrams, words which incorporate all the letters available, appear in bold and receive bonus points. One such word is always drawn from a recent Scientific American article—look out for a popup when you find it! You can view hints for words in the puzzle by hitting the life preserver icon in the game display. The dictionary we use for this game misses a lot of science words, such as apatite and coati. Let us know at games@ any extra science terms you found, along with your name and place of residence,
Scientific American
a day ago
- Scientific American
New Doubts about Milky Way–Andromeda Collision, Explanation of 2023 Marine Heat Wave and Worms That Build Towers
Rachel Feltman: Happy Monday, listeners! For Scientific American 's Science Quickly, I'm Rachel Feltman. Let's kick off the week with a quick roundup of some science news you may have missed. You've probably heard that our galaxy, the Milky Way, is doomed to collide with the neighboring Andromeda galaxy sometime around 5 billion years from now. But according to new research, maybe we shouldn't count on this multigalactic merger deal going through. In a study published last Monday in Nature Astronomy, researchers who analyzed data from the European Space Agency's Gaia space telescope and NASA's Hubble say the event is more of a coin flip than a given: the team's 100,000 computer simulations suggest there's just about a 50/50 chance of the two galaxies colliding within the next 10 billion years or so. When you look at the next 4 to 5 billion years, that chance drops down to around 2%. On supporting science journalism If you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today. In other space news, scientists are buzzing about a tiny star that punches way above its weight. TOI-6894 is a red dwarf that's roughly 20% as massive as our sun. But in a study published last Wednesday in Nature Astronomy, researchers say they've spotted the signature of a giant planet orbiting the little guy. The planet, called TOI-6894b, is described as a low-density gas giant—it is a little bigger than Saturn, but only has around half as much mass. Astronomers say the presence of a gas giant around such a small star is so surprising that it challenges the most widely accepted theory of planet formation. That theory, called core accretion, suggests that giant planets are born when their solid cores get massive enough to start pulling in lots of gas. Smaller stars generally lack enough gas and dust in their protoplanetary discs to allow for such a process, but this red dwarf ended up with a gas giant anyhow. Because red dwarf stars are super common in our galaxy, this could mean gas giants are more plentiful than we thought. The researchers will use the James Webb Space Telescope to study the planet's atmosphere, which should provide more clues about its formation. Now let's move on to some environmental news. Back in the summer of 2023 an extreme marine heat wave hit the North Atlantic Ocean, affecting water temperatures from Greenland to the Sahara and all the way over to the Americas. A study published last Wednesday in Nature aimed to explain why. The researchers say the summer temperature surge was equivalent to around 20 years of typical warming in the North Atlantic. While climate change, of course, played a role, the new study pinpoints some other factors that made water temperatures particularly hot that summer. For starters, in June and July of that year, the winds over the North Atlantic were weaker than at any other period on record, which meant less churning to mix sun-warmed surface waters. As a result heat was more concentrated and rose more quickly. The researchers also note that it's possible a reduction in sulphur emissions led to fewer clouds in some areas, so more sunlight hit the water. But the scientists were quick to add that weak wind was the primary driver—and that climate change is likely to make things worse. Reducing pollution from the atmosphere, generally speaking, remains a great thing to do. In a news release, the study's lead author noted that if we don't cut down our fossil fuel emissions, extreme marine heat waves like the one we saw in 2023 will only get more common and more intense. And that's bad news for everyone: warm water releases heat into the atmosphere, contributing to heat waves and severe rainstorms. Warmer oceans also mean more hurricanes. And higher water temperatures are tied to increases in coral bleaching as well. But another study, published last Thursday in Frontiers in Marine Science, offers some hope for ailing coral—not from bleaching but from a disease that can be just as devastating to a reef. Stony coral tissue loss disease, or SCTLD, was first identified off the coast of Florida just over a decade ago and has now been spotted on reefs throughout the Caribbean. More than 20 species of coral can catch it. SCTLD quickly destroys a coral's soft tissue, with some species dying within weeks of symptoms appearing. It's not clear exactly what causes SCTLD, but it seems likely that bacteria at least play a part because treating affected corals with an antibiotic paste has been shown to help them survive. The issue with this treatment is that it's a temporary fix, and it opens the door for the potential evolution of a resistant strain of whatever bacterium is involved. This new study reports on the promising results of treating coral with pro biotics instead. Corals have microbiomes just like we do, and a boost of good bacteria seems to help keep them healthy. The researchers behind the new study started by testing more than 200 strains of bacteria from disease-resistant corals and ultimately focusing on a particularly promising strain from great star corals in the lab. In 2020 the scientists took their experiment into the ocean, applying a solution of seawater and probiotics to a Florida reef impacted by SCTLD and using weighted plastic bags to create a sort of in-ocean aquarium that kept the treatment from floating away. After two and a half years, the probiotics seemed to be preventing the spread of SCTLD without causing any other disruptions to the reefs' microbiome. More research is needed to see how this treatment might impact coral in other regions, but probiotics could prove to be an important tool for fighting this devastating disease. We'll wrap up today's episode with something fun, if maybe also a little bit creepy: an act of 'collective hitchhiking' featuring a living tower of worms. Nematodes are tiny worms that you probably don't spend much time thinking about, but they're actually the most abundant animals on Earth, making up an estimated four-fifths of all animal life on our planet. According to a study published last Thursday in Current Biology, these creatures might sometimes use their vast numbers to make up for their miniscule size. Individual nematodes will sometimes stand on their tails and wave around to try to hitch a ride on a passing animal. Scientists have long suspected that they can also link together to form multi-worm 'towers' to increase their height, but this had only ever been observed in a lab setting. In the new study scientists describe seeing some of these waving worm towers inside decaying apples and pears found in the dirt of orchards. Further observations proved that, far from a chaotic pile of worms, these structures reflect the kind of superorganism behavior we see in slime molds and fire ants. While many species of nematode could be found in each piece of rotting fruit, the towers only consisted of members of the same species. Once in place, the nematodes would wave in unison as if they were one giant worm. Experiments in the lab showed that nematodes could self-assemble in just two hours and remain stable for more than 12. They could even create little arms with which to explore the space and build bridges to cross gaps to new locations. So the next time you're struggling with a group project at school or work, just remind yourself that even nematodes can figure out how to work together. That's all for this week's science news roundup. We'll be back on Wednesday. Science Quickly is produced by me, Rachel Feltman, along with Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper, Naeem Amarsy and Jeff DelViscio. Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck fact-check our show. Our theme music was composed by Dominic Smith. Subscribe to Scientific American for more up-to-date and in-depth science news.
