Another host of 17-year cicadas will emerge this spring. Brood XIV (14) will be found as far south as Georgia, as far east as Massachusetts, and all across Kentucky.
In Ohio, southern counties will have populations, but most will be east of I-71.
Mt. St. Joseph University Professor Emeritus Gene Kritsky says Brood XIV comes just four years after another large, widespread emergence of the singing insects. That seems like a lot, but Kritsky says it's just the schedule.
鈥淲hat usually happens 鈥� and this is my third go-round in this 鈥� interest in periodical cicadas tends to decline the more frequently they happen,鈥� he says. 鈥淎fter Brood XIV there are no more 17-year broods coming out until Brood I in four more years. Basically 12 out of every 17 years we at least will see cicadas.鈥�
Kritsky says they'll come out when the ground temperature hits 65 degrees. The small insects climb into the tops of trees to finish the maturation process. About five days later they start singing, which is part of the mating cycle. After mating, the females lay eggs on leaves, and after six to eight weeks, the adult cicadas die. When the eggs hatch, the nymphs make their way to the ground where they burrow and the process starts again.
鈥淭his year鈥檚 emergence 鈥� if it鈥檚 anything like what happened 17 years ago 鈥� will have some areas (with) loud chorusing. Probably not as loud as we saw with Brood X. We鈥檙e going to see the distribution be relatively scattered.鈥�
This brood, number 14, will be found generally east and south of Cincinnati, but there could be outliers. They'll also be scattered across Kentucky.
鈥淲e鈥檒l see them here in Cincinnati probably around the second week of May,鈥� he says. 鈥淧robably two to three weeks after they first started coming out the singing鈥檚 going to get really loud in certain areas. Toward the first week of June, you鈥檒l start to notice the song getting a little quieter in intensity. And they鈥檒l be around until the end of June.鈥�
Kritsky says the is still going strong and accepting data from citizen scientists.
It was introduced in 2019 as a crowd-sourcing tool to track the emergence of Brood X. Kritsky says they are just shy of 250,000 users, who have submitted a total of almost 750,000 photographs.
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