This Spring, Millions Of Cicadas Are Set To Emerge In West Virginia After 17 Years Underground

Coming soon to a county near you: millions and millions of cicadas. That's right, if you thought last year's Brood IX cicadas were bad, wait until you hear about the Brood X cicadas set to emerge this year!

We have an important public service announcement for West Virginia's Berkeley, Grant, Hampshire, Hardy, Jefferson, Mineral, and Morgan counties. Heads up, everyone: the cicadas are coming.

"What's the big deal?" you might be wondering. "We see cicadas every year." Not Brood X cicadas, you don't. Instead, you're probably thinking of their more greenly-hued cousins, the annual cicadas that do emerge year after year.

The last time these Brood X cicadas saw the light of day (or rather, their parents did) was in 2004. They've been hanging out underground ever since then, first as eggs, then as various stages of nymphs, before (sometime soon!) finally digging up out of the ground and transforming into adults.

Here's a map of the 15 broods of cicadas. As you can see, West Virginia is in the thick of many broods set to emerge in the coming years. But this year's brood is the largest of the bunch in terms of quantity.

This year, In fact, 15 states including West Virginia, not to mention Washington D.C, will welcome these loud little insects.

Last year's brood IX cicadas, if you remember, crawled through Fayette, Greenbrier, Mercer, Monroe, Pocahontas, and Summers counties... and yes, they were loud! We can't imagine what kind of racket we're in for this year.

(The cicada pictured above was photographed in the spring of 2020 at Brush Creek Falls in Mercer County.)

Thankfully, the cicada's song is relatively short lived, and in a matter of weeks, all that will be left of their raucous chatter will be a few old shed skins clinging to tree branches.

Until that happens, though, you may want to keep some earplugs handy!

To learn more about Brood X cicadas, check out the helpful information provided by the Cicada Mania website here. If you're fascinated by cicadas (or even if you're not), you may also be interested in learning about a brand new disease discovered in West Virginia last year that's affecting their population - a bizarre zombie fungus with a mind of its own.