Latest Cicadas News
Collecting sex-crazed zombie cicadas on speed: Scientists track a bug-controlling super-sized fungus
LISLE, Illinois (AP) — With their bulging red eyes and their alien-like mating sound, periodical cicadas can seem scary and weird enough. But some of them really are sex-crazed zombies on speed, hijacked by a super-sized fungus. West Virginia University mycology professor Matt...
Think cicadas are weird? Check out superfans, who eat the bugs, use them in art and even striptease
FOREST PARK, Illinois (AP) — Mayumi Barrack sees a pair of mating periodical cicadas getting together, whips out her phone, says, “Hi guys!" and takes their picture. “I'm not really a bug person, but as I look more and more I feel they are adorable,” Barrack explained, noting...
Illinois is hit with cicada chaos. This is what it's like to see, hear and feel billions of bugs
RIVERWOODS, Ill. (AP) — The ground had seemed to undulate at night, alive with bugs. Crawling cicada nymphs, striving to get higher after 17 years underground, marched en masse toward and up trees, pausing to shed their skin and emerge as adults. And then the fun began. Cicada...
How do cicadas make their signature sound, so eerie and amazingly loud?
WHEATON, Ill. (AP) — The most noticeable part of the cicada invasion blanketing the central United States is the sound — an eerie, amazingly loud song that gets in a person's ears and won't let much else in. “It’s beautiful chaos,” said Rebecca Schmidt, a U.S. Department of...
Rare blue-eyed cicada spotted during 2024 emergence at suburban Chicago arboretum
LISLE, Ill. (AP) — It was late morning when The Morton Arboretum's Senior Horticulturist Kate Myroup arrived at the Children’s Garden with a special guest: a rare, blue-eyed female Magicicada cassini cicada, spotted earlier in the day by a visitor. A lucky few saw the cicada...
Up close and personal, cicadas display Nature's artwork. Discerning beholders find beauty in bugs.
With rich reds, gentle greens and basic blacks, Nature's screaming, crawling artwork is the epitome of rare beauty — at least in the eyes of some beholders. To others, it may seem just creepy. It's a colorful, ever-changing canvas of bugs. Lots of them. A...
Cicadas are so noisy in a South Carolina county that residents are calling the police
NEWBERRY, S.C. (AP) — Emerging cicadas are so loud in one South Carolina county that residents are calling the sheriff's office asking why they can hear sirens or a loud roar. The Newberry County Sheriff's Office sent out a message on Facebook on Tuesday letting people know that...
Would you like a cicada salad? The monstrous little noisemakers descend on a New Orleans menu
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — As the nation prepares for trillions of red-eyed bugs known as periodical cicadas to emerge, it's worth noting that they're not just annoying, noisy pests — if prepared properly, they can also be tasty to eat. Blocks away from such French Quarter fine-dining...
Invaders from underground are coming in cicada-geddon. It's the biggest bug emergence in centuries
Trillions of evolution’s bizarro wonders, red-eyed periodical cicadas that have pumps in their heads and jet-like muscles in their rears, are about to emerge in numbers not seen in decades and possibly centuries. Crawling out from underground every 13 or 17 years, with a collective...
Cicadas are nature's weirdos. They pee stronger than us and an STD can turn them into zombies
The periodical cicadas that are about to infest two parts of the United States aren't just plentiful, they're downright weird. These insects are the strongest urinators in the animal kingdom with flows that put humans and elephants to shame. They have pumps in their heads that pull...
