Why 2024's cicada emergence is so rare | BBC Global

2024 is witness to a once in 221e phenomenon and it's all about periodical cicadas 2024 is an exceptional year because we have two Broods emerging this year that is a dual emergence and the last time these two Broods emerged at the same time was 1803 when Thomas Jefferson was President of the United States the next jeel emergence won't be until 2245 very skaters are bugs and what makes them unique is that they have a a very strange life cycle after the eggs hatch the immatures go into the soil and they're underground out of sight for up to 17 or 13 years depending on the brood in question and so in their 17th or 13th year in May when the soil temperature reaches 64° fah that's the trigger that they start coming out in big numbers there will be billions so what did they do during all this time Underground well whether it's 17 years or 13 they're all doing the same thing gorging so they're not hibernating they're not sleeping they're they're just tunneling and sucking fluid from the tree roots they probably move no more than maybe one meter in any direction during all those years it turns out they able to count the years they can detect fluid flow from the roots of the trees up to the leaves and as that and that happens every spring when the tree starts producing their leaves so they're able to count that what we don't know is how do they remember what number it is there there's your mystery less of a mystery is the one thing you might know about C if you know anything at all they're deafening sound the singing is it's a song of sex they have this complex mating system the males Gather in a tree and start singing and those really loud I mean I've measured them as high as 96 DB which is loud enough to drown out a plane flying into L War the jewel emergence will cover a huge range at the Eastern us although the two Broods might only barely overlap each other around Northern Illinois and then after 221 years waiting for this rare phenomenon and after billions or even trillions of cicadas have emerged within just about 8 weeks it will all be over most of them will be gone by the 1st of July until ultimately there was one male singing for M that was no longer there and then the waiting game begins again sh

Channel: BBC Global

Views: 187,408

Keywords: bbc, bbcreel, bbcnews, factual, features

Id: qUwG9VN2YPk

Length: 2min 47sec (167 seconds)

Published: Fri May 03 2024