Animals

Cicada science heats up when Brood X emerges. 2021 was no exception

Mating madness of big, bumbling 17-year-old bugs awed East Coast nature watchers

Brood X cicadas on a leaf

After 17 years underground, crowds of Brood X cicadas in the eastern United States dug their way up to daylight, took adult form and flirted in loud crowds. These beauties were seen in Burtonsville, Md., on June 1.

CHIP SOMODEVILLA/GETTY IMAGES

By Susan Milius

- More than 2 years ago

In one of history’s weird coincidences, the second summer of a global pandemic brought Johns Hopkins biologist Ethan Allen Andrews out on a Baltimore lawn to watch the massive Brood X cicada mating frenzy.