We've had a few recent reports of periodical cicadas calling at Look Rock Campground and the White Oak Sinks area (here, here and here). Periodical cicadas (Magicicada spp.) come in two flavors, 13-year and 17-year. They're organized into broods that emerge en masse in certain years, like our raucous 17-year Brood X emergence in 2021. But localized warm/cold spells and other factors can cause members of a brood to emerge early or late. We're not scheduled for a brood emergence here this year, so anybody out now is considered off-year, and that makes them extra interesting for science! They are likely either Brood XIV 17-year cicadas which will emerge in 2025 or Brood XIX 13-year cicadas which will emerge in 2024 (more info here).

We need your help documenting this rare phenomenon

If you're in the park in the next couple of weeks, listen for the whirring of cicadas up in the trees. It's too early in the year for the annual cicadas that we'll hear later in the summer, so any cicada whirring should be these periodicals. Here's an example of what to listen for: link to audio recording, but again any cicada whirring in the next few weeks is of interest.

If you hear cicadas, please record their calls through iNaturalist

In iNaturalist click the Observe camera icon on iPhone or the green plus sign on Android to create a new observation and tap the microphone icon to record a sound. Try to get a clear, 30+ second audio recording and make sure that the location and date fields are filled in on the observation. You can put "Magicicada" for the ID (What did you see? field) or just leave it blank. Feel free to make as many observations as you'd like: multiple observations in the same area and/or observations of calling in different spots.

Let me know if you have any questions: will@dlia.org. Thanks to @weecorbie for the brood information and to @harrier and @cypselurus for posting observations from White Oak Sinks!

// Will Kuhn (@willkuhn), director of science and research, Discover Life in America (dlia.org)