00:00Brood, 14, cicadas emerge, after 17 years, underground, across eastern U.S.
00:08For 17 years, billions of cicadas waited underground across the eastern United States,
00:13and in 2025, Brood, 14, finally returned.
00:18Known as the Greater Eastern Brood, this enormous group of periodical cicadas emerged across parts of more than a dozen
00:26states,
00:26from Georgia and Tennessee to Pennsylvania, New York, and Massachusetts.
00:31Unlike annual cicadas, these insects spend almost their entire lives underground as nymphs, feeding on fluids from tree roots.
00:39When soil temperatures reach about 64 degrees Fahrenheit, they tunnel upward almost simultaneously.
00:46The insects climb trees, fences, walls, and almost any vertical surface before shedding their old skins and transforming into winged
00:54adults.
00:54Then comes the sound.
00:57Male cicadas vibrate special organs called tymbals to produce intense mating calls that can turn quiet neighborhoods and forests into
01:05a constant buzzing chorus.
01:08The adults have only a few weeks to reproduce.
01:11Females cut tiny slits into tree branches and lay their eggs before the adults die.
01:16Weeks later, the new nymphs hatch, fall to the ground, and disappear beneath the soil to begin another 17-year
01:24countdown.
01:25Despite their overwhelming numbers, periodical cicadas do not sting and are generally harmless to people.
01:31Their mass emergence also becomes an enormous food source for birds and other wildlife.
01:37Brood 14's 2025 appearance was one of nature's strangest synchronized spectacles.
01:43And after all that noise, its next major return is not expected until 2042.
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