In parts of Virginia, West Virginia and North Carolina, cicadas will climb out of the ground for their once-in-17-year mating cycle. Scientists have dubbed this grouping brood IX. As summer nears, 2020 has another trick up its sleeve.

They survive just long enough to reproduce. After all of those years underground, adult cicadas live only a few months. Females lay their eggs in the trees. The next generation of cicadas then hatch and drop so they can burrow underground to begin the lengthy process of maturing into adults.

Depending on the species, a cicada might emerge as often as annually or as infrequently as every 17 years, but they expire approximately five to six weeks later. Those several weeks are short but sweet for this remarkable insect.

As trees go through their seasonal cycles, shedding and growing leaves, the composition of their sap changes. And when cicada nymphs feed on that sap, they likely pick up clues about the passage of time. The 17th iteration of the trees’ seasonal cycle gives the nymphs their final cue: it’s time to emerge.

The cicada will stay underground from 2 to 17 years depending on the species. Cicadas are active underground, tunneling, and feeding, and not sleeping or hibernating as commonly thought. Adult cicadas, also called imagoes, spend their time in trees looking for a mate.

Some scientists believe that cicadas, which are from an insect family that predates dinosaurs, developed their 17-year pattern as a way of escaping particularly voracious predators, in effect, evading their enemies through time. Any above-ground predator that relies primarily on cicadas will starve waiting.

Predator: Bears, deer, moose, sheep, turkeys, songbirds (including robins), insects (including cicadas), rabbits, hares, rodents (including squirrels and woodchucks), weasels, raccoons, skunks, opossums, foxes, and coyotes eat different parts of the elderberry shrub.

“The periodic cicadas will be an easy snack for wildlife lucky enough to be around for their emergence,” he said. While many snake species eat cicadas, Anthony said, copperheads, equipped with retractable fangs that deliver venom, are a particularly menacing predator.

If a creature has a mouth or some other mechanism to digest cicadas, it likely will try to eat them. Squirrels (yes, they’re nuts for cicadas too), birds, possums, raccoons, foxes, other insects, fungi… they all love cicadas.

But of course, zoo animals aren’t the only ones that eat cicadas. Local songbirds, including chickadees, bluebirds and cardinals, will take advantage of their abundance too, something Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center scientists are eager to study.

While there are no predators that prey only on the periodical cicadas, there are plenty of animals that feast on them when they emerge because they’re so abundant and so easy to catch. This includes birds, rodents, snakes, lizards, and fish. Mammals like opossums, raccoons, domestic pets—cats and dogs—will eat them.

They are therefore consumed by relatively large birds, including raptors, herons, gulls, cuckoos, bee-eaters and rollers (Sazima 2009), but some small passerines are also known to eat cicadas (Koenig and Liebhold 2005).

Entomologist George Hamilton at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey, told Newsweek that people should generally leave the insects alone and that, fortunately, the cicadas do little serious damage to most trees. …

Locusts are the swarming phase of certain species of short-horned grasshoppers in the family Acrididae. These insects are usually solitary, but under certain circumstances become more abundant and change their behaviour and habits, becoming gregarious.

The Old Testament of the Bible does mention locusts in several parts, and a glance at the passages will show that the bugs have always been associated with destruction and devastation. In most cases, locusts were the weapons of the gods who used it to punish mankind.

The desert locust is potentially the most dangerous of the locust pests because of the ability of swarms to fly rapidly across great distances. The major desert locust upsurge in 2004–05 caused significant crop losses in West Africa and diminished food security in the region.

Locusts do not attack people or animals. There is no evidence that suggests that locusts carry diseases that could harm humans.

From a nutritional point of view, grasshoppers and locusts are excellent sources of protein and other essential nutrients. But one major factor that must be considered today is the use of chemicals. The current locust outbreak is so severe that authorities have turned to using insecticides.

Farmers used to try to drive away the locusts by lighting fires. They also dug up the eggs. Now crops can be sprayed with insecticides from vehicles or aeroplanes. Scientists are trying to improve the control of locusts, by preventing or dispersing swarms.

How Do You Get Rid of Locusts?

1. Protecting valuable shrubs and garden plants with insect mesh or cloth that is not green because green colors tend to attract locusts.
2. Removing locusts by handpicking them off plants.