Illinois Residents Will See More Cicadas if These 2 Things Are in Your Yard

You'd have to have been living under a rock or 8 inches underground, to not know that Illinois will be crawling with billions of cicadas very soon. If you have these two things in your backyard, you're going to be seeing more cicadas than most.

Why Are So Many Cicadas Emerging in Illinois

Once every 13 or 17 years a Periodical cicada brood arrives in big numbers. This year will be different. Very different.

This year, two broods are coming. Simultaneously.

Brood XIII makes an appearance every 17 years, while Brood XIX pops up every 13 years. This year, they’re going to have to learn to share, as they’ll be wriggling topside together.

An event, according to the experts, that only happens once every 221 years.

The Most Disgusting Cicada Fact Ever

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Cicadas even have reproductive issues similar to sexually transmitted diseases in humans. One big difference is that a male cicada with a human-like STD turns into a sex-crazed zombie trying to spread the pathogen. A fungus begins to grow on infected males until their reproductive organs and butts fall off.

When Will The Cicads Begin to Emerge in Illinois

Cicadas won't make the trip up 8 inches to the surface until the ground reaches a temperature of 64 degrees. According to Cicada Mania, it will be late May or early June before we see cicadas above ground. It also looks like we can expect Cicadapocolypse 2024 to last about three weeks.

It won't be long before you see a few start to crawl out of the ground in your backyard.

If You Have These in Your Yard, Expect to See More Cicadas

Experts from Illinois' Morton Arboretum, who have already seen some in their landscape and trees say it will be hard to escape them once they're out of the ground. And, if you have a yard with trees and shrubs cicadas will be all over your yard.

The feast of fluids from your trees and shrubs will mean piles of cicada shells. In general, cicadas are not picky about where they lay eggs.

Oak, maple, hickory, apple, birch, dogwood, linden, willow, elm, ginkgo, and pear trees are some of their preferred trees to lay eggs. Cicadas also may lay eggs in shrubs, like rose, lilac, and forsythia, according to the Arboretum.

NBC Chicago shared some great ways to protect your trees and shrubs from the cicada invasion.

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