JOHN ABBOTT/NATUREPL.COM

This April, parts of the Midwest and Southeast in the United States will be overrun with more than a trillion buzzing cicadas. These red-eyed insects spend years underground after they hatch. They dig their way to the surface only to mate and lay eggs.

Huge numbers of cicadas will appear this spring because two different broods, or groups, are emerging at the same time. Brood XIII, or the Northern Illinois Brood, spends 17 years underground, and Brood XIX, or the Great Southern Brood, emerges every 13 years. The last time these broods emerged together was 1803—when Thomas Jefferson
was president!