What If You Were Attacked by a Swarm of Cicadas?

WHAT IF

What if you were bombarded by a plague of some of the noisiest insects on Earth?

Transcript

00:00 These insects have been growing

00:03 underground for 17 years.

00:07 They're annoying, creepy,

00:10 and above all, noisy.

00:13 These are cicadas.

00:16 And soon, millions of them

00:19 will erupt from underground,

00:21 causing chaos to everything around them.

00:25 Now, what if you suddenly

00:28 got surrounded by them?

00:30 These insects that spend

00:56 17 years underground

00:58 are known as periodical cicadas.

01:01 And they almost never come in small doses.

01:06 When they're finally born,

01:08 there's 1.5 million of them

01:11 per acre of land.

01:13 And in a single forest,

01:15 there can be hundreds of millions of them.

01:19 So what would happen if you were caught

01:21 in the middle of all these cicadas?

01:24 The first thing you'd notice

01:26 with millions of cicadas around you

01:28 would be their incredibly loud mating call.

01:32 A single cicada can be as loud as a lawnmower.

01:36 Now, imagine how loud millions of them would be.

01:39 It's common for people who live in areas

01:46 with lots of cicadas

01:47 to wear some sort of hearing protection.

01:51 Even if you're far away from them,

01:52 you would still notice their noise.

01:57 So if millions of them suddenly bombarded you,

02:00 it would be like being in the middle of a rock concert.

02:05 If you're in this cloud of insects for long enough,

02:08 they'd likely damage your hearing,

02:11 not to mention that you'd be incredibly annoyed.

02:15 "Oh, worst concert ever."

02:18 And speaking of which,

02:20 a cicada's body is very similar to a guitar.

02:24 Since their abdomens are hollow, like a guitar,

02:28 the sound gets amplified

02:29 and can spread further and be even louder.

02:33 Now that your hearing is damaged,

02:35 you'd likely be suffering from the pain,

02:38 unable to move.

02:41 As you're lying there,

02:42 the cicadas would continue to fly around you.

02:45 Some of them may pierce into your skin

02:48 and suck on your blood,

02:49 but this isn't intentional.

02:52 The cicadas are just mistaking you for a tree,

02:54 since their primary food source comes from trees.

02:59 Drinking your blood would kill the cicadas,

03:01 so you shouldn't expect too many bites from them.

03:05 See, the thing is,

03:06 cicadas are really, really dumb.

03:10 I mean, can you blame them?

03:12 They've been growing underground for 17 years.

03:15 When they emerge,

03:16 they have virtually zero brain power,

03:19 and very few motor skills.

03:23 This would cause millions of them

03:24 to stumble and bump into you.

03:27 You'd probably squish thousands of them

03:29 by accident just by walking.

03:32 And because these insects are so clumsy,

03:35 it makes them easy pickings

03:36 for lots of different animals.

03:38 So not only would you be swarmed by cicadas,

03:42 but you could expect other critters,

03:44 like chipmunks, raccoons,

03:46 and birds to be near you as well.

03:49 They'd all be feasting off the cicadas for weeks,

03:52 until there were practically none left.

03:55 And as that's happening,

03:57 you should be able to make your escape.

04:00 Granted, you'd have some injuries,

04:01 but this is a scenario where it's possible

04:04 you'd make it out alive.

04:08 After all, these cicadas aren't trying to hurt you.

04:10 They're just dumb and really annoying.

04:14 They're mainly a food source for other animals.

04:17 And every summer,

04:19 those creatures can feast in the forest.

04:23 So although they might not be our favorite insect,

04:26 we should probably keep periodical cicadas alive.

04:31 But what else could we safely make extinct?

04:35 Maybe mosquitoes?

04:38 Well, that sounds like a story

04:41 for another WHAT IF.

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