HANOVER COUNTY, Va. -- There is a familiar drone in the air in some parts of Virginia as cicadas emerge from the ground, but this year there is some extra buzz as more than just the annual.
Virginia is one of the parts of the country where bugs from the group known as Brood XIX are emerging as well. They only do so once every 13 years. At the same time further west, cicadas from Brood XIII are emerging on their 17-year cycle.
"And it's the first time in almost 200 years these two broods have emerged together, which is pretty cool," said Timshel Purdum, Virginia C. Ellett Deputy Director of Education at the Science Museum of Virginia. "From somebody who loves bugs, they're actually beautiful. They're big, they're black, they have bright red eyes. You can't mistake them for anything else. And they make these amazing sounds. They're actually the loudest insects in the world."
Purdum said the annual cicadas have more of a green and brown coloration.
She added among the theories for why some broods emerge only 13 or 17 years is because so many animals eat them, they come out in massive numbers in order to overwhelm the predators to the point that some will survive and procreate.
Among the areas seeing the Brood XIX emergence locally is Hanover County. Purdum said they encourage people who spot the cicadas to report them on apps or websites like iNaturalist or Cicada Safari as it will help scientists track if the population remains the same since last time or has dropped, in part to the destruction of its habitat.
"Cicadas in general, but especially the periodical cicadas are impacted by a lot of things that humans do. We are seeing decreases in numbers as these animals emerge," she added. "You can imagine for an animal that lives on the base of tree roots for 13 to 15 years when those trees disappear and you put in hardscape and parking lots, they don't exist anymore. Historic records there's millions and millions of these things. But, as we change the landscape, those numbers could change drastically. But that goes back to doing the citizen science and collecting that data for the scientists so we can know that."
One thing to watch on for these cicadas, Purdum said, is an indication they have been infected by a fungus that turns them into "flying saltshakers of death".
"One of the cool things about nature is that everything eats something else. And there's these really cool funguses, a type of mushroom if you will, that infects cicadas specifically. And the males -- it turns their back ends, their bottoms, if you will, into a fungus whereas the male flies, it shakes off the fungus spores and it can infect all the other cicadas to spread the fungus. And it actually makes them unable to mate. They can't have babies anymore, but they're flying around spreading fungus love instead."
Purdum said people don't have anything to fear from the bugs and encourage people to go find the bugs while they're out.
"They're just really awesome critters."
If you would like to learn more about cicadas, the Science Museum of Virginia has created a STEM at Home kit for you to do just that.
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