'Cicadaheads' armed with tech, ready to take on alien bug invasion (2024)

You’ve got your Swifties. Your Potterheads, Trekkies and your Whovians.

But 2024 belongs to the Cicadaheads.

This rare breed of fandom is poised to welcome a swarm of these alien-like bugs that are set to emerge from the earth in deafening chirps of biblical proportions across large swaths of the Midwest and southern U.S.

For the first time in 221 years, more than a trillion of two particular periodical cicada broods are set to surface this spring. The last time this emergence happened was in 1803, when Thomas Jefferson was president and busy finalizing the Louisiana Purchase.

And mega-enthusiasts like Roger McMullan, an author and self-proclaimed Cicadahead, are waiting with anticipation to greet the invasion.

Cicadaheads emerge only every so often with vigor and unmatched passion — much in line with the red-eyed insects that emerge from the earth every 13 or 17 years, McMullan said.

“That’s one of my favorite things about the periodical cicada … It is such a weird and awesome event, to have millions of these insects emerge in such a condensed area. A lot of these (fans) are just ecstatic,” said McMullan, of Lake City, Utah.

The largest periodical brood set to swarm, crawl and chirp this spring is Brood XIX, which surfaces every 13 years across the southeastern United States — Missouri, central and southern Illinois, Louisiana, North Carolina, Virginia and Maryland included.

Brood XIII, emerging every 17 years, has its base in the northern half of Illinois and parts of Wisconsin, Ohio and Iowa.

Together, they will provide a super-charged invasion of alien-like bugs with a pronounced and immersive sound, in some cases equivalent to the decibels of a motorcycle engine.

Friend or foe?

Some cicadas surface annually, but periodical cicadas spend most of their lives underground. They unearth when soil temperatures hit 64 degrees to mate and lay eggs — marking the start of a new generation of that particular brood.

McMullan said cicadas are most fascinating because of the predator satiation — or the adaptation in which prey show up in high volumes, so far outnumbering predators that the prey survives time and time again for generations.

“Periodical cicadas, they basically don’t have any defenses. They don’t sting. They don’t bite. They’re not poisonous or anything like that. And so, to me, the coolest thing is … it’s really literally like strength in numbers. Power in numbers,” McMullan said.

Oftentimes, people bristle at the thought of billions of cicada emerging because the mating calls can be quite loud — nearly 100 decibels, actually. That’s a near-equivalent to a lawnmower, chainsaw or motorcycle.

However, according to the CDC, news reports that highlight those sound comparisons alone can mislead people into believing the common myth that cicadas easily cause permanent hearing damage. The CDC says exposure duration and distance also matters.

“Like any loud noises, if you plan for prolonged exposure, ear plugs or other noise canceling devices are recommended,” McMullan said.

But the noisy presence of these bugs only seeks to fuel the enthusiastic fire of scores of people set welcome the bugs in spectator fashion.

And some scientists are countingon the help of the citizenbug groupies to track and study the cicadas.

‘There’s an app forthat’

Dr. Gene Kritsky, professor emeritus of biology at Mount St. Joseph University in Ohio, has been researching cicadas for decades, including periodical brood patterns.

He has high hopes that the Cicadahead fanbase turns out this year — to improve his research.

Scientists like Kritsky have used crowdsourcing —a method of conducting research by involving the public with self-reported findings — for decades.

Kritsky set up a hotline in 1987 to receive confirmation of sightings from people — and the volume of messages broke his answering machine. Then in 2004, he began fielding emails from citizen scientists and fans of the insect telling Kritsky childhood stories and documenting the latest sightings for his research.

“I was getting an email a minute during business hours. Six hundreds of emails on cicadas in the first day,” Kritksy said.

And now?

“There’s an app for that." — to quote Apple.

When Kritsky and Mount St. Joseph University launched the Cicada Safari cellphone app, more than 200,000 people downloaded the app and over half a million photographs of cicada sightings were submitted. Kritsky said he expects to exceed those numbers with this year’s emergence.

Users can submit video and photos of periodical cicadas to the app. Once verified, they will be added to an online map. The app greatly assists Kritsky in his research.

It’s available on Google Play and the Apple app store.

The evolution of crowdsourcing

Crowdsourcing data about this red, beady-eyed insect dates back to the 1850s, Kritsky said, but it looked quite different.

In the mid-1800s, a Maryland doctor, Gideon B. Smith, had been assisting another doctor, Nathaniel Potter, researching the insect until Potter’s death in 1843.

Smith continued on with his research through the 1850s and 1860s.

With his background working in newspapers, Smith began writing to publications all across the country predicting when and where cicadas would next emerge. In those same letters, he requested readers to send him details on personal sightings via U.S. mail.

“And if he really wanted the data, he’d offer to return their stamps to them,” Kritsky said.

Before Smith’s death in 1867, he became the first person to document every periodical brood in existence. But his name is often forgotten as he failed to publish his cicada manuscript prior to his death.

In a way, the creation of Cicada Safari is a continuation of Smith’s research, Kritsky said.

A growing fanbase

To connect with fellow Cicadaheads, McMullan created a “Cicadas 2024” Facebook group last spring in the lead-up to this year’s once-in-a-lifetime phenomenon. There, Cicadaheads have posted pictures of backyard discoveries with captions like, “I cannot wait!!!” or links to Etsy shops with custom-designed cicada T-shirts and jewelry.

One fan recently asked how she could get her hands on a 1907 first edition of “The Periodical Cicada” by C.L. Marlatt, a cicada pioneer and entomologist in the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

And there are numerous postsfrom Cicadaheads suggesting road trips to the Midwest, specifically central Illinois — an epicenter of sorts where one brood flanks the other.

A timing mystery

Despite all his years studying periodical cicadas, Kritsky said the insect’s knack for a synchronized unearthing every 13 or 17 years remains quite the mystery.

How does a particular brood know when it's time to dig themselves out from underground to mate?

“It’s got to be some kind of internal clock. We do know that they are able to detect fluid flow from the roots to the leaves in the spring. And that’s how they determine how many years pass. One of the great biological mysteries is: How do they remember what year it is?”

Cicadas molt, orshed their skin, four times in their life underground, so that may help them keep track of the years, Kritsky said.

Kritksy said he has fielded hundreds of calls over the years from individuals who say the cicada experience triggers childhood memories, he said.

Kritksy said periodical cicadas serve as a timestamp of sorts for families, stretching over multiple generations.

“I remember in 1987, one woman called me and said that she distinctly remembered back in 1936, a cicada landed on her brother’s nose and she used a baseball bat to knock it off, breaking his nose. Several years later, she’s a young mother who took out her 7-year-old daughter to watch the cicadas … 31 years later, she’s talking to me. I’ll bet that family, every time they see a Brood X emergence, is bringing up the story about grandma, great grandma.”

‘Cicadapocalypse’

As a child, Roger McMullan collected insects with his father. As a senior in high school, his love for cicadas ramped up. Last year, McMullan dressed up as a cicada, and his son as a young cicada for Halloween, further solidifying his ranking as a hardcore Cicadahead.

He describes it as "a thrilling graphic novel about squirrels Fae, a prepper, and Cyrus, a foodie, as they try to escape an onslaught of periodical cicadas."

Throughout the story, facts about the periodical cicadas are “sprinkled” throughout the narrative, making it an “immersive and educational read” that's ideal for the cicada-curious elementary and middle school reader, according to his CrowdFundr website.

McMullan said the book's fun narrative alsohelps children confront their fears with the unknown. Education is the best way to combat fear, he said.

"(In the book), a lot of people are scared ... it's a cicada invasion. And so they're terrified," he said. "But throughout the book, (the main characters) discover that, 'Oh, lo and behold, cicadas are actually awesome, a great food source.' And so that's the hope in this education journey, that those who read it also learn that cicadas are awesome."