2024 was an oddball year in many ways. But things went bonkers in the summer when a once-in-a-lifetime event took place. It involved two of the 15 distinct broods of cicadas in the United States.
In 2024, two separate broods of cicadas hatched from their underground nurseries in the same year. One of these broods emerges once in 17 years—the Pharaoh Cicada (Magicicada cassini)—and the other species (Magicicada tredecassini) emerges once in 13 years. A coincidence, mathematically, should occur once in 221 years.


The last time this happened (1803), the British East India Company was spreading like a cancer (an advanced stage 3, but not quite stage 4) in the Indian subcontinent, Thomas Jefferson was the President of the USA, and Napoleon Bonaparte was selling Louisiana for pocket change to the US so he could buy shiny guns to fire at the British.
We were warned for sure. This was splashed all over the news and there was a bit of fearmongering going on. They made it sound like we would wake up in our beds one day covered in cicadas that would get into our houses through every available opening.
Thankfully, it wasn’t that dramatic.
It started with a trail of exoskeletons on a bush, as the marauding broods left their nymph forms behind and transformed into their more commonly seen adult versions. Many of the cicadas appeared to assume yoga poses—upside down or clinging to the underside of branches.
Wall of Sound, cicada-style
When the cicadas were out and about, the wall of noise outdoors was unmistakable. Male cicadas have an exoskeletal structure called the tymbal, right between the wings where thorax meets abdomen. Muscles in the abdomen can make the tymbal fold and unfold rapidly, producing a sound comparable to a tin can being crushed and expanded. These muscles can flex up to 400 times a second, resulting in shrill sounds that resonate like an electric buzzing rising to a glass-shattering crescendo. Fingernails on chalkboards have sounded way more pleasant.


The melee lasted about four weeks. Wherever we went—be it the backyard, or a park—the only sound we’d hear was cicadas. The moment you entered a forest, the noise would shut out everything else, filling the atmosphere with an impenetrable sound dome that drowned out everything beneath it.
It is worth examining why these cicada nymphs emerged from under the ground and swarmed every possible tree so abruptly, just as sundresses and shorts started coming out of wardrobes.
The answer is a simple, three-letter word: sex.
All For Love – A Cicada’s Life Story
Cicadas are diurnal, and they have a few weeks to find a soulmate, do their thing, lay eggs, and kick the bucket. And it appears that the ones that can vibrate their tymbals the loudest get the attractive females, which explains the cacophony. Long story short, ab muscles are chick magnets even in the animal kingdom.

During those summer days, the noisy cicadas were everywhere. Camouflage seemed the last thing on their mind, as they threw caution to the wind and sat on green leaves with their black bodies and apparently bloodshot eyes easily discernible to anyone who was (and even wasn’t) looking. The birds certainly did not complain as they descended en masse and eviscerated unsuspecting suitors desperately hoping for some action later that day.
Where have all the cicadas gone?
And just like it started, the cicada apocalypse ended abruptly. The signs were there for everyone to see. Take a step outdoors and there would be a dead cicada crunching underfoot. There were so many bodies lying around that even the birds stopped caring. A sudden summer rain created tiny puddles chock-full of cicadas floating on their backs. Gorgeous transparent wings drifted in the wind like fall leaves.
The next time these 17-year and 13-year broods meet, none of us would be around. Perhaps humanity wouldn’t either. Who knows what notes they would exchange about the changes the world went through when they come face to face?
Or perhaps, they would just ask, “Your place or mine?”
Fun Fact: Cicadas synchronise their emergence every 13 or 17 years by counting the annual cycles of xylem flow in trees, which they feed on while underground. This internal clock allows them to emerge simultaneously as adults when conditions are favourable. Stragglers may emerge at different times, but their numbers are kept low by predators, ensuring that most cicadas emerge together. This synchronisation is crucial for overwhelming predators and ensuring reproductive success during emergence years.
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