Rare cicada double emergence not seen in 200 years

Bangkok Post Group

Scientists are expecting hundreds of billions of cicadas to pop up across parts of the United States this spring. For the first time since 1803, two broods of the loud bugs will be emerging and overlapping. - REUTERS

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00:00 [cicadas buzzing]

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00:21 The thing that's really special to me about cicadas this year

00:25 is the fact that in Illinois, both the 17-year

00:28 and the 13-year cicada are emerging at the same time.

00:31 Here's the state of Illinois.

00:33 We're going to have the 2 broods of cicadas.

00:36 Here in the north where it's colder,

00:38 we're going to have the 17-year cicadas,

00:41 and here in the south where it's warmer,

00:44 we have the 13-year cicadas.

00:46 And if we zoom in a little bit, right around Springfield,

00:49 and this is the area kind of in Central Illinois

00:52 where we would be able to find both of them.

00:56 [cicadas buzzing]

00:59 [indistinct radio chatter]

01:02 ...pretty amazing.

01:04 And do you know how long a dog-day cicada

01:06 stay underground?

01:07 So the numbers are on the order of billions.

01:09 It's hard to say exactly how many,

01:12 but it's many billions, maybe hundreds of billions.

01:16 So those really rare events are the opportunities

01:19 for those cicadas to be all out

01:22 and maybe for the species to meet each other,

01:26 for crossings between species to occur,

01:29 for cool evolution to happen.

01:32 [cicadas buzzing]

01:35 (whooshing)

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