All Week Long
Later this month, the 17-year cicada brood will emerge from the soil in Cook County and throughout northern Illinois. A separate 13-year brood will come out of hiding further south in Illinois, and there will be overlap between the two in parts of central Illinois—something that hasn’t occurred in 221 years—but not here.
While the cicadas will be numerous and deafening, they’re well worth experiencing, and there is no reason to avoid them. “Like the solar eclipse, this is a natural phenomenon to experience and document, not be scared of. The cicadas won’t be apocalyptic, or louder than what we heard 17 years ago,” says Negin Almassi, resource management training specialist with the Forest Preserves.
“They will not bite you. These cicadas have a straw called a proboscis to stick into trees and suck out nutrients,” adds Zachary Salus, a Conservation & Experiential Program (CEP) aide with the Forest Preserves. Aside from that, “They’re too busy finding a mate. Even if they just land on you, they just sit there. They’re docile.”
The 17-year cicadas in our area, known as Brood XIII, and other local species spend most of their lives in “nymph” stage, feeding on plant root fluid from below the ground, Salus says. Once the soil reaches 64 degrees, they shed their exoskeleton and tunnel to the surface, leaving telltale signs with little “chimneys” in the soil.
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