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Monday, April 25, 2016

ALERT: If You Live In THESE States, You’re About to Experience a Biblical Plague

cicadas
Cicadas alive (left) and dead (right)

oped: Don't know about y'all but they remind me of politicians during the election cycles...they come out make one hell of a racket~mate ~multiply then disappear until the next election cycle!

If you live in a large swath of land between Ohio and Maryland on the East Coast, get ready to party like it’s 1999 — with a biblical plague of cicadas!
According to the U.K. Daily Mail, Brood V — a very noisy, very prolific version of cicada — comes out once every 17 years.
They last came out in 1999, and unless you’re a graduate of Common Core math, you can pretty much tell that this means this summer’s going to be a whole lot more noisy than usual for a lot of Americans.

According to the website Cicada Mania (proving once and for all, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that if it exists, there’s some sort of website dedicated to it) the Brood V cicadas “will emerge in 2016 in parts of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland and Long Island.”
“Generally speaking, these cicadas will begin to emerge when the soil 8″ beneath the ground reaches 64 degrees Fahrenheit. A nice, warm rain will often trigger a emergence,” Cicada Mania continues.
“So, definitely May, but something might happen in April if we have a particularly hot spring.”

When they emerge, male cicadas emit a loud sound to woo females. Given that there can be 1.5 billion bugs per acre, that makes it a really loud sound. Check out this clip from Brood II, a separate brood of 17-year cicadas that emerged in 2013. https://youtu.be/drxqiXaWNCw 



And keep in mind, that’s the plague of Brood II. This is Brood V, which means it must be at least 250 percent louder, right? (I’m a liberal arts major, so that’s the best explanation I’ve got.)
“After the male and female cicada have mated (3-5 days) the female will lay fertilized eggs 24+ in slits cut with her ovipositor on small live twigs,” entomologist Russ Horton told The Washington Post back in 2013.

“It takes roughly six weeks for the eggs to hatch and the nymphs to emerge,” Horton continued. Then, they go underground and wait for 17 years to emerge and cause a biblical plague. Presumably, they’re watching Netflix in the interim.

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