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By Jordan King
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Cicadas have begun to appear in Chicago, after emerging from a 17-year hibernation underground.
Observers in the Chicago metropolitan area have started spotting the loud but harmless insects, including staff at the Morton Arboretum, a public garden and outdoor museum.
Stephanie Adams, the arboretum's plant health care leader, told the Chicago Tribune that they first saw the cicadas on May 13, and that by May 17, the insects had taken over entire areas of the garden.
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She added that the particularly warm weather was the reason the cicadas had appeared in the area about a week earlier than expected.
The sighting at Morton Arboretum is one of many across the U.S., which is under an invasion from two cicada broods emerging at once—a coincidence that has not occurred since 1803.
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Brood XIII, which has a 17-year cycle and nests between central Illinois and southern Wisconsin, has arisen at the same time as Brood XIX, which has a 13-year cycle and nests between southern Iowa and the Carolinas.
As many as 100 trillion periodical cicadas are expected to come out this year, researchers at the University of Connecticut have estimated.
A new Cicada Safari app, which lets users track where they see cicadas in real time, reports that "Brood XIII is emerging in Wisconsin and Chicago."
"Forested areas outside Chicago are anxiously waiting for things to start. This also happened in 2007, when the suburbs reported cicadas on May 27, yet surrounding areas did not see cicadas until early June. This is not surprising as urban areas are heat sinks," the app said.
Brood XIX is "completing its emergence" in the places it has been spotted since mid-April.
Floyd Shockley, a co-lead of the entomology department at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History, told USA Today earlier in May that cicadas "are sort of goofy. They're not super-great flyers, and they're kind of awkward when they land.
"They don't bite. They're not poisonous. If your pet eats one, it's not going to harm them. They're totally harmless to humans and domestic animals."
People in Chicago seem to be embracing the cicadas' arrival, with some joking about the insects on social media.
One user wrote on X, formerly Twitter, "Our new overlords the cicadas are here."
Another added: "First live sighting of a Brood XIII cicada in my yard today in Chicago! So excited to hear them sing!"
A commenter posted a photo of himself in a cicada shirt, writing in the caption, "Everybody make some noise (they certainly will!) for your Chicago Cicadas!"
May R. Berenbaum, the head of the University of Illinois' department of entomology, told the Chicago Reader: "This is as exciting as it gets in entomology. Better than the eclipse."
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