Trillions of Cicadas Sing in North America
Trillions of cicadas have emerged and are making themselves heard across North America. It's all part of a rare double event, which happens once every 200 years.
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00:00It's like something out of a horror movie.
00:05Cicadas everywhere, as far as the eye can see, trillions of them.
00:10If by some miracle you don't see them, you definitely hear them.
00:16That noise is the male cicadas trying to attract females with mating calls.
00:21The synchronized songs can hit over 100 decibels, louder than a lawnmower.
00:27They come out and they do the two best things they're known to, they'll sing at the top
00:31of their voices and they pee in the wind.
00:33For cicadas, there is power in numbers.
00:37Their whole survival strategy is to come out and size large numbers that all the available
00:41predators can eat all the cicadas they want and there's still millions left.
00:45And the predators get sick of eating them.
00:47Luckily for those in the area, what's happening right now in North America happens only once
00:52every 200 years or so.
00:56Cicadas spend most of their lives underground.
00:59They emerge when they reach adulthood to mate and die shortly afterwards.
01:04There are two different broods, one that comes out every 13 years and another that emerges
01:09every 17 years.
01:11Doing the math, these broods coincide every 221 years and that's what's happening right
01:18now.
01:20This year we're going to get two broods that are going to emerge at the same time.
01:23We're going to get trillions of these amazing living organisms come out of the earth.
01:31It might seem downright terrifying, but experts say that the cicada emergence is a good thing.
01:37Once the cicadas finish mating, they die shortly afterwards, providing valuable nutrients to
01:42the soil when they decay.
01:44They are fertilizing the soil.
01:46They're providing nutrients to other animals, to other plants and all of these things are
01:52all coming from these cicadas.
01:53With their big red eyes, their orange veins and membranous wings, cicadas might not be
01:59everyone's cup of tea.
02:02But for the insect enthusiasts out there, this is a rare treat that they'll only see
02:06this one time.
02:08And for those who get a little freaked out by insects, well, they can rest easy knowing
02:12that this won't happen for another three lifetimes.
02:16Justin Wu and Leslie Liao for Taiwan Plus.