Ohio cicada map 2025: When will cicadas go away? How deep do they burrow?
If you're reading this in Greater Cincinnati, you've probably seen the cicadas swarming around the city. After these adult cicadas mate, they will lay eggs, and their cicada babies (known as nymphs) will hatch after a few weeks.
How far into the ground will the nymphs burrow when they hatch from their eggs? Here's a little biology lesson.
After six to ten weeks, cicada nymphs will hatch. They appear white and ant-like when they hatch, according to the Ohio State University Extension.
Once they hatch, they drop to the trees and immediately burrow around 6–18 inches below the ground. The nymphs then spend the next 13 or 17 years below ground before emerging to continue the life cycle.
Millions, if not billions, of cicadas (whether you like them or not) have emerged in Cincinnati, Southwest Ohio, Northern Kentucky, and Southeast Indiana. This brood of cicadas is XIV (14), the latest brood of 17-year cicadas to emerge in the United States.
The duration of the cicadas' presence depends on the brood and whether they are annual or periodical species.
Once periodical cicadas have mated and the females have laid their eggs, the insects will die after about three to six weeks above ground. That means many of this year's periodical cicadas could go away in mid-June, according to The Nature Conservancy.
However, Gene Kritsky, professor emeritus of biology with Mount St. Joseph University in Cincinnati, said that Cincinnati's cicadas are still approaching their peak in many areas. Kritsky, founder of Cicada Safari, an app that crowdsources and reviews data on cicadas, attributed their continued presence this late into June to the cooler, rainy days in May.
The eggs will hatch in early August and nymphs will burrow into the soil, while the dead adult cicadas will fall back to the ground, helping to fertilize the soil while leaving a stinky, terrible mess.
This 2025 brood has emerged in great numbers along the I-71 corridor near Cincinnati, per The Enquirer. All or part of several other counties in Southern and Southwest Ohio are experiencing cicadas this year.
Here are the counties that are getting hit the hardest:
Adams
Brown
Parts of Butler
Clermont
Most of Clinton
Most of Gallia
Parts of Hamilton
Highland
Parts of Ross
Most of Warren
In two years, a 13-year brood is expected to emerge in Brown and Clermont counties southeast of Cincinnati, as well as 10 other counties in Northern Kentucky.
Ohio will then see cicadas again in 2033, 2036 and 2038, according to Cicada Mania.
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Cicada map 2025: See where they are in Ohio, how deep they burrow
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