Chilly Temps May Delay Brood X Cicadas In Michigan, But Not For Long
Listen to U-M Professor Thomas Moore on why 2021’s generation of cicada will be special — and impossible to ignore.
Brood X is coming to Michigan parks, forests, backyards, schoolyards — heck, basically everywhere that’s literally not inside a human-created structure — this summer.
Sounding more ominous when called by their scientific name, the short-lived, warmth-loving cicada return cyclically across the Eastern U.S. You’ll likely recognize their loud, buzzing-like mating call, which is often associated with the hot days of early summer in Michigan.
This year a particularly fascinating phenomenon will occur: the generation of cicadas that’s due to emerge is one of the largest ever recorded. It’s called Brood X (the Roman numeral for 10) and in the next months, they’ll be impossible to ignore.
University of Michigan Professor Thomas Moore began researching insects in 1956. Now retired at 91 years old, his entomological passion is still the North American cicada, Magicicada, the only species that primarily lives underground, emerging at the end of its life every 13 to 17 years to eat, mate and die.
“It’s a fantastic phenomenon,” Moore says. “You can’t ignore them.”
Read more in this week’s Metro Times.
Listen: What to expect when Brood X emerges this summer.
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