Cicadas make a loud return every few years.
This spring will see a certain brood of cicadas emerge throughout the Southeast, including some parts of Oklahoma, after 13 years.
Cicadas can impact trees and plants to some degree — and especially our ear drums.
There was love in the air on Valentine’s Day. Come springtime, however, people will hear the love in the air.
No, literally. Cicadas emit those screeching sounds as mating calls.
“When these cicadas come out,” Alex Harman explained that “they fly up into the treetops and they’ll sing basically all afternoon to try and attract a mate. And to make sure that they’re mating with the right species, different species have different calls.”
Harman is a PhD student and insect diagnostician at Oklahoma State University’s Department of Entomology and Plant Pathology.
He expects the cicadas to emerge at the end of May, then dying off sometime after mid-June. He said that’s based on previous reports in Oklahoma.
The type of cicadas we’ll deal with in parts of Oklahoma are those from Brood XIX (Roman numeral for 19). Known as the Great Southern Brood, Brood XIX is on a 13-year cycle, whereas some other periodical cicadas emerge every 17 years. Those are different from annual cicadas, who emerge about every five years in overlapping cycles.