Americans brace for billion-bug invasion that happens every 17 years
- Billions of cicadas will soon invade part of the United States, including the capital Washington
- Every 17 years, ‘periodic’ cicadas come out en masse to mate, lay eggs and then die
They have spent close to two decades buried underground, waiting for the right moment to emerge – before pouring forth by the billions, filling the air with an ear-piercing racket and covering walls and floors from the US east coast to the Midwest.
No, it’s not a horror film – well, not exactly – but rather the regular, if very infrequent, arrival of the cicada, a thumb-sized insect with alarmingly wide-set eyes and membranous wings.
Their unnerving arrival is as spectacular as it is rare. Every 17 years, these “periodical” cicadas emerge just long enough to mate, lay eggs … and die.
This year the cicadas are expected to arrive in May, or possibly a few weeks earlier in some regions, covering parts of a vast area from Washington in the east to Illinois in the Midwest to Georgia in the south.
01:49
‘Murder hornets’ spotted in the US for the first time
“It is loud, and it is non-stop. It’s incessant,” said Peter Peart, a 66-year-old retiree who lives in Washington’s Columbia Heights neighbourhood, where he witnessed the cicada invasions of both 1987 and 2004.