Cicadas emerging in 2024 are part of a historic double brood. Both 13-year and 17-year-old cicada broods are uprising simultaneously. An event like this happens once every 221 years and double broods like the ones emerging in the spring have not been seen since 1803.
But 13-year and 17-year-old broods emerging in the same year do happen every 5 to 6 years — just not at the same time as this year’s cicadas. As the cicadas emerge as nymphs and later molt into winged cicadas, they will do a variety of surprising behaviors.
The Cicadas Will Shoot Streams of Pee
Most insects excrete urine as droplets; cicadas pee in a continuous stream. A new study published in March of 2024 in PNAS found that understating how cicadas pee can help researchers unlock new details about fluid dynamics.
