Trillions of cicadas from Brood X set to emerge – CBC News, submitted by Kris Lee

photo of cicada

One of the craziest life cycles of any creature on the planet’ culminates after 17 years underground.

Sifting through a shovel load of dirt in a suburban backyard, Michael Raupp and Paula Shrewsbury find their quarry: a cicada nymph.

And then another. And another. And four more.

In maybe a third of a square foot of dirt, the University of Maryland entomologists find at least seven cicadas — a rate just shy of a million per acre. A nearby yard yielded a rate closer to 1.5 million.

And there’s much more afoot. Trillions of the red-eyed black bugs are coming, scientists say.

Link to complete CBC article 

 

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