One of the most peculiar of North America’s natural wonders — the synchronized mass mating frenzies of big, obsessed insects called periodical cicadas — is playing out across the southeastern and midwestern United States.
The year 2024 offers a particularly good display. The biggest, in geographic extent, of all the in-sync groups (called broods) is emerging from soil into daylight this spring. Known as Brood XIX, it spans roughly from Georgia into Illinois. And unlike 2021’s extravaganza (SN: 12/14/21), this time a second multispecies brood in the Midwest (called Brood XIII) means all seven of North America’s named species will be showing off somewhere.
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