The typical summertime bug is back and filling the streets of Chicago and its surrounding areas. The buzzing cicadas are starting to come out of their hiding and show themselves around the city. The trees and ground in many parts of Chicago and its suburbs are flooded by these insects, making it known that summertime is just around the corner. These insects are beginning to come out of their underground homes and are now taking to creating a near full coverage outer layer of everything.
Some residents are reportedly very happy to have these bugs back and buzzing around.
One resident of the Chicago suburb, Park Ridge, by the name of Christina Cosgrove, spoke to news sites saying she sees cicadas everywhere she looks. Whether she is out gardening or simply taking a stroll, she sees them. Her kids, she said, are quite excited and are even enjoying the cicadas presence. Another resident of Park Ridge, named Nikki Allen, called cicadas, “another activity for the kids to play with” as we go into summer. Many kids who live in areas that see cicadas in the summertime often enjoy catching them and releasing them as a neighborhood game.
This year’s cicada outing is actually historic.
There are two groups of cicadas that filter in and out. One breed of the cicadas comes out every 13 years, the other comes out every 17 years. We have commonly started to refer to them simply as 13 year cicadas and 17 year cicadas. The way in which these bugs work is they literally do not leave their homes in the ground for the first 13 to 17 years, respectively. Just about every year there is a group of one of the bugs ready to come above ground. This year, groups of each are out in the wild of Illinois. This is the first time in over two centuries that we have seen the two groups each have batches of cicadas come out at the same time.
Because of this history making year, many believe the cicadas this year might be a bit different than they normally are. One, we will certainly see a far larger population of the bugs being out and about. Two, because of the increased population and two different breeds, cicadas may seem to behave differently with each other, since the two breeds have not historically interacted much.