IT’S CICADA SEASON
Ready for bulging red eyes, lots of screeching and a light dousing of sticky bug juice?
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ANVILLE — On a steamy weekday morning, along the eastern edge of Illinois, beams of light pierced through the leafy cover above Kickapoo State Park. A pulsating chorus swelled and steadied: cicada mating calls. A fine mist hung in the air: cicada pee. A man crunched down on a few of the twitching insects and said they tasted buttery: cicada brunch.
Brood X summer is in full swing in east-central Illinois, where 17-year periodical cicadas crawled their way up through thousands of straw-sized holes in the earth around Memorial Day to make the most of the end of their lives.
The brood appears in only a few areas of Illinois, which houses the western edge of the national population near the Indiana state border. This year, researchers traveled to Vermilion County to check out some dense concentrations.
On a drive to Vermilion County, the bugs — the larger ones often still smaller than a thumb — make their presence known by smashing into windshields. On the return trip, even after leaving the cicadas behind, a ringing in your ears might serve as a reminder of your recent company.
Brood X, which surfaces in more than a dozen states in the Midwest and eastern United States, has caused some trouble in recent weeks. A man crashed his car in Cincinnati after a cicada flew into his face. A plane carrying reporters to President Joe Biden’s first overseas trip was grounded for hours after cicada interference. The brood is so numerous the bugs may have shown
up on weather radar. But the insects are generally harmless.
Some entomophiles are following along virtually, preparing for 2024 when 13-year and 17-year broods will surface throughout Illinois. For those who dare step into Brood X’s world — one filled with bulging red eyes, lots of screeching and a light dousing of sticky bug juice — the insects can be more oddity, or wonder, than nuisance.
They can also leave behind some lessons more permanent than their fleeting adult lives.
“They struggle to get up to the ground, and they’re only alive for a very short period of time,” said Carolyn Krainak, of Aurora. “And they’re just all out. They are living their lives. They are going full force.”
Krainak’s family passed below cicada-filled branches in a canoe along a river 17 years ago, and today the Vermilion County trip is among her fondest memories. She doesn’t expect others to understand the interest; her kids don’t remember the cicadas at all, just making s’mores. But she’d like to return and see Brood X in all of its splendor before it’s too late.
“Everything else can be going on and chaos, but they’re going to get the job done,” Krainak said. “They’re going to do what they have to do. And I think we can learn from that.”
Overtaken by cicadas
“They’re in the trees, they’re in the prairie, they’re on people.”
That’s how Tim Edison, the superintendent of Kickapoo State Park, summed up Brood X’s proliferation.
“I know people that aren’t expecting them are really surprised, especially in the campground, because they are really loud,” Edison said.
On a recent morning, it was possible for two to land on your back without realizing, only to be picked off and eaten alive by Edison. He appeared visibly disappointed in the Tribune reporter and photographer who couldn’t work up the courage to pop a live one into their mouths.
Wildlife seemed to be enjoying the limited-edition food option, as well.
“Below some of the bird nests you see a lot of cicada wings,” Edison said.
Other cicadas could be detected by a slight poke from their mouthparts, which allows them to suck out nutrients. Some don’t seem to understand the difference between people and plants.
Visible streams of honeydew — cicada pee — shot through the air. The choristers — male cicadas — were relentless, their mating calls a constant, grating static of modulated swells.
If you took the time to stare at one of the Brood X representatives resting on your hand or crawling up your leg, you might notice their neon-orange windowpane wings, variations between the bugs including dark or striped undersides — or maybe just their absolute weirdness.
“If someone’s never experienced something like this, it’s really cool to come here and see,” Edison said. “The peace and quiet and tranquillity that you sort of think you’re going to see in the middle of a wooded park all of a sudden changes when it gets taken over by probably billions of cicadas.”
Mark and Anna Goddard were out at Kickapoo, where they had made peace with the campground invaders. They pointed out some residue on their camper’s windshield from cicada guts. Anna Goddard shared a cicada photo with friends on social media the night before. “They are annoyingly loud but incredibly intriguing,” she wrote.
One landed on Anna Goddard. She watched it walk a few steps with its wiry legs, and then buzz away.
“If it’s only the males that make that sound, think of how many males are out there,” she said.
“You can’t be too annoyed by it,” Mark Goddard said. “It’s just another life cycle on the big blue spinning ball.”
Coming out party
They rose from the earth at sunset.
“By the third night you could not walk a step, you couldn’t move your foot without stepping on one emerging out of the ground,” said Lara Danzl, environmental education supervisor of the Vermilion County Conservation District, referring to Brood X’s arrival a couple of weeks ago. “Watching them come out of that nymph exoskeleton with their transparent body and their transparent wings, they’re almost like this white ghost.
“And they start to crawl toward any tall structure — whether that be a tree, or a semi-sturdy branch of a plant or even your leg,” said Danzl, based at Kennekuk County Park, another cicada hot spot.
If you look at one of the exoskeletons, you can often see the seam where they escaped. The cicadas molt just about everything — their tracheal tubes, their eyes — as they complete a slow burst out of their casing. The insects sometimes grab on to the old covering to allow their wings to expand; their black and orange colors usually set in the day after.
“It almost reminds me of something out of ‘Star Wars’ or some science fiction movie,” Danzl said.
Danzl was around for Brood X’s last round and still remembers the sound. “What I don’t remember from 2004 is the immensity of the numbers,” she said as she watched them fly outside her window. “It’s just crazy to think that you’re underneath the ground for 17 years and then you’re an adult for just a few weeks.”
Calls have come in from curious out-of-state travelers and from northern Illinois, asking about the cicadas, Danzl said. Some people interested in renting shelters have also asked how they might avoid the bugs.
“They’re not wanting the cicadas out here for their June wedding,” Danzl said. “But it’s a great story that you can always tell. It’ll make another memorable aspect of your day out here at the park if you got married with the cicadas, or had a graduation party with the cicadas.”
Susan Biggs Warner, historical interpreter for the Vermilion County Conservation District, has seen a few rounds of the cicadas and will lead a Saturday hike in Forest Glen Preserve, featuring cicada history and facts. What’s new this round is growing public interest.
“I don’t ever remember so many people coming out just specifically to experience it,” Biggs Warner said. “I think it’s a sign that people are a little more aware of nature, and maybe a little more curious.”
Conservation clues
Near Salt Fork, Katie Dana grabbed nets and a cage and set out along a trail in search of some particular cicadas. Dana, a scientific specialist in entomology with the Illinois Natural History Survey, arrived in the Midwest for graduate school and soon found herself fascinated by everything cicada. She now studies the insects throughout the state, spending time near the undisturbed soil of cemeteries and railroad prairies.
Walking past cicada exoskeletons hanging from tree branches, a leaping fawn and a rat snake, Dana picked a cicada off a branch, inspected its underside, looked into its zombie eyes and flicked it forward to send it flying off again.
“Going out to these sites and documenting where these broods are is important because we’re not going to get a chance for another 17 years,” Dana said.
Dana was on the hunt for a male and female of each species to take back to the Champaign-Urbana lab. Brood X includes three species — Magicicada septendecim, Magicicada cassini and Magicicada septendecula — able to be differentiated by calls created from tymbals, vibrating membranes inside their abdomen. There are also physical differences, including undersides with or without stripes, and colored spots between eyes.
Dana was also on the lookout for cicadas hosting an unusual fungus — one that leads to their butts falling off, doses them with a psychedelic-amphetamine cocktail and turns the males hypersexual.
Signs of mating could be spotted, along with evidence of egg laying in branches.
In a few weeks, nymphs smaller than a grain of rice will fall to the ground and burrow into the earth for 17 years, preparing for the next jamboree.
Farther south in Forest Glen, a mix of exoskeletons and dead cicadas pooled around a sugar maple near the visitors center, greeting those who came close with the smell of hot garbage.
Thousands of cicadas gathered on one hawthorn tree, turning its trunk into a pointillist painting humming with life. In the tree’s general vicinity, a noise-measuring app recorded levels around 90 decibels — a swell about as loud as a lawn mower.
By the end of the sweltering day, with researchers coated in sweat and probably some cicada honeydew, Dana was asked if plucking cicadas from branches ever gets monotonous, or old.
“I still enjoy it, every day,” Dana said. “I still bring my work home with me. Literally.”
Back at the lab, researchers recorded the males’ calls, and pinned them up for photos. After death, some of the bugs would become part of the survey’s collection, which contains cicadas from more than 100 years ago.
Tracking and testing the brood is important because it allows researchers to follow long-term shifts in population and range, and gather conservation clues.
“The climate change question is huge in all of our minds these days,” Dana said.
John Cooley, a University of Connecticut at Hartford professor, has traveled the state and across the country to map cicadas. Kickapoo is “pretty spectacular,” he said, but he also recommended driving Illinois Route 1 south from Marshall.
Some range shifts occurred this year, Cooley said, but nothing major. And some cicadas from another brood — three years early for 2024 — were spotted at Bemis Woods Forest Preserve outside Chicago.
Otherworldly experience
In Vermilion County, 17 years ago, the familiar song of cicadas sounded new to Carolyn Krainak — like a siren.
“It was just an unreal sound,” said Krainak, who grew up in Illinois with annual cicadas. “I would say it was deafening.”
Krainak thought the trip was headed toward disaster — two young kids, a headache of a soundtrack, six-legged insects ready for a nighttime crawl.
“We had no idea what we were getting into,” Krainak said.
The family couldn’t talk to each other while they were eating their lunch. But by night, everything quieted down and they were able to sleep.
When Krainak realized Brood X would be back this year, she wanted to revisit the site of her otherworldly experience.
“Most people were looking at me like I was crazy, because most people are trying to avoid that,” Krainak said.
Yet there’s something about having a front-row seat to the cycle of life.
“I just want to hear it again,” Krainak said. “It just completely overtakes you, all your senses, when you’re there with them.”
Jessica Kent, of Lombard, is participating in Brood X celebrations virtually for now, but she carries a permanent homage to the cicada.
Kent saw an image of a cartoon cicada and shared it with a friend. The friend asked if they should both get cicada tattoos. Now, Kent has a frantic-looking insect imprinted on her skin with the text: “Time to scream.”
Her favorite reaction so far happened in Costco. From across the store, a voice called out, “Is that a cicada?”
Kent confirmed. “That’s awesome,” the admirer said. “It’s year 17!”
“It just felt like people were cheering for a sports team,” Kent said.
Kent has enjoyed seeing other cicada tattoos — one more realistic with a sprinkling of Old Bay seasoning, another a Pride cicada.
“The idea of a giant bug is not super appealing,” Kent said. “But they’re like winged, weird puppies. They’re just really cute.”
Kent ordered a cicada plushie, able to be unzipped from a pouch.
“I feel like it’s when a band that you love is touring,” Kent said. “Oh, they’re just kind of outside of where I am. But I’m still going to buy the merch.”
Kent accidentally dug up some cicadas in the fall while doing some landscaping work — a reminder of what’s growing below.
“2024, that’s our year,” Kent said.
In 2024, broods of 13and 17-year-olds will cover the north and south of the state. The rare crossover of northern Brood XIII, a 17-year group, and Brood XIX, 13-year cicadas, offers once-in-a-lifetime research opportunities for scientists. And more chances for fans to find meaning in the bugs.
Some think of them as aliens; others as a lifeline to summer memories. They’ve been written about as the souls of poets, screaming out because they have more to write. Maybe it’s something more simple.
“They’re not really motivated for anything other than existing,” Kent said. “Which is kind of interesting.”