Everything You Need To Know About the Impending Cicada Invasion
What’s up with the 2024 cicada invasion? Neil deGrasse Tyson and comedian Chuck Nice learn all about cicadas and the multiple broods set to unleash this spring and summer with entomologist Jessica Ware. Why are they so noisy?
Learn why so many cicadas emerge all at once and about their life cycle. We explore th timbal organ and what makes for a really effective cicada mating call. What do they even do underground for 17 years? Jessica tells is about cicada larvae dropping down from trees and how human activities are impacting cicadas. Plus, learn why Neil has a two-year-old cicada in his freezer.
Check out our second channel, @StarTalkPlus
Get the NEW StarTalk book, 'To Infinity and Beyond: A Journey of Cosmic Discovery' on Amazon: amzn.to/3PL0NFn
Support us on Patreon: / startalkradio
FOLLOW or SUBSCRIBE to StarTalk:
Twitter: / startalkradio
Facebook: / startalk
Instagram: / startalk
About StarTalk:
Science meets pop culture on StarTalk! Astrophysicist & Hayden Planetarium director Neil deGrasse Tyson, his comic co-hosts, guest celebrities & scientists discuss astronomy, physics, and everything else about life in the universe. Keep Looking Up!
#StarTalk #neildegrassetyson
00:00 - Introduction: Cicadas
1:20 - Double Brood Emergence
2:45 - Why Evolution Kept Cicadas
5:40 - Why Cicadas Are So Noisy
9:50 - The Cicada Lifecycle
14:08 - Closing Thoughts: Sharing the Earth
Are you Midwesterners ready for the cicadas?!
Yeah. They're loud and can damage fruit trees, but the bass love them. 😁
Yes! Chicagoan here, and I think the sound will take me back to childhood with great memories of playing in my friends treehouse listening to the cicadas 😊
WE’RE ALL GOIMG TO DIE!!!! I SUBMIT TO THE CICADAS!!!
I am an avid gardener. I've noticed double the amount of cicada holes. I've wrapped all my baby trees with fabric. I am ready and excited to see a natural Wonder
Springfield Illinois will have all the bugs you will need for your study just come on down here Neil and we will help you out
Here in Japan we have cicadas every Summer. It's one of the natural sounds of the season. In any Japanese movie or TV show, if they want to set the scene in Summer it will usually open with the sound of the cicadas singing...
In the south, we have cicadas every summer as well. We just have highs and lows
We do in the Midwest too. These people are just freaking out over media hype again. Yes this big “wake up” happens every so often but they’re acting like it’s the end of the world.
We have them every year too.
When the broods align like this though in some areas they cover everything. It's pretty exciting to see.
@@ShadowsxEvil It makes for some great fishing. The sunfish and bass love them.
The fact they can live 17 years in the ground its mind blowing.
@@Kube_Dogit's their favorite prime number
@@zima2252 😂🤣
@@Kube_Dog The idea that I have? They don't know it has been "17 years". Time will always be relative. Each surviving brood has been around long enough that some defined time span has become part of their ability to reproduce efficiently. This rate has been consistent enough that they evolved this cycle. I think of it in the same way that the gestation of a human is around 9 and a half months give or take. Putting aside differences between one type of life and another...why not longer? Why not shorter? This could be Thee Fitness Test deciding what lives and what dies. Those that are adaptable and fortunate enough to dial it in on the cycle that works for them and their competition... Maybe we are hitting one of the nails on its head when we say they are making their presence known during the time where we experience higher temperatures... In the end, this has been their way to exist. Behaviors that make them less likely to be exterminated by other species and environmental conditions. Agreeable, and performing so, over an exceptional period of time. Leading to this sort of thing. *shrugs* Brainstorming here, and very fun/wild to think about.
I know it's crazy! Osama Bin Laden only lasted 9 years hiding in the ground
I know, right! I'm barely hanging on at 69yrs ABOVE GROUND! Must have been a lack of something, or too much Jack of Daniels!!
If Neil and chuck were my teachers in science I would have passed 😂 these guys literally make learning in general fun
Facts 💯🤣
I’d still fail but have fun
If Neil and Chuckles were teaching the class, I would have passed too. Hard pass.
You probably had great teachers, it's more likely you appreciate the science now at an older age than when you were 13.
BIG FACTS
I have the rare pleasure of listening to those infernal insects every single summer so what's a trillion more? They make me appreciate winter.
They do make quite the RACKET!! It is like hearing millions of miniature LOUD rattles! Eesh!! 😂😂😂
Would love to hear their perspective on us...at least for science.
You are graced with the presence of billions of cicadas :)
The difference between living with a buzz and screaming over it... I think that's the differense.
Are you in Greece in the summers?
Never thought I’d find a conversation about Cicadas so fascinating.
Cicadas are great! When i was a girl and my friends dad explained them to us i have loved them ever since! If things were explained patiently with interest when we were young we all would appreciate more.
MORE LIKE AN INVASION
The sound of cicadas is in every good childhood memory of summer!
I love her excitement in describing the cicadas! She loves nature❤
She loves being on camera.
Chuck helps to bring everything to a laymans understanding. Just a great duo for learning
I understand that EVERYONE hates Cicadas, but I personally love them. The sounds of them singing can lull me to deep sleep. As a child in Kentucky my siblings were HORRIFIED of them, but I used to let them crawl around on my shirt then gently put them back to a tree. I have a cicada tattoo on my left hand because of my adoration for them. Also my fave internet mystery is Cicada 3301!!!
They make a lovely symphony in tune with nature!!! I adore them also. They also call in the rain and sing loudly before a storm.
I also love them, as does my older daughter (now grown).
Cicadas are COOL!! I have one tattooed on my inner forearm. Living in Phoenix until I was 15 (now 40), there were cicadas annually and the chorusing sound was comforting to me as a child. I miss that chorusing sound of the summer. Also, I’d collect the shells/exoskeletons that were shed and kept them in a jar. Judging by the comments section, not everyone hates cicadas after all. 😂 ❤
I think they’re gorgeous, I love holding them, I think most Americans are indifferent toward them
I LOVE the sound of cicadas!
My tinnitus gives me cicada season 24/7
I've never heard of anyone with the same tinnitus sound as me.
I don't have it all the time, but every once in a while, the sound changes from a hiss to a Cicada like pulsation.
I hear you!
I feel ya😮
Me too! The pain is real.
Great ep. We need Jessica back to speak on Dragonflies!
That is the sound of the summer evening twilight. No joke, hearing that sounds and smelling honeysuckle in the air brings me back to my childhood and Sweet memories of running around the yard and whole neighborhood smacking lightning bugs with a wiffle ball bat lol
It relaxes me. When I sit in the back yard and listen to them, I can fall straight asleep
I have childhood memories of the sound of cicadas. I find the sound to be relaxing and sort of meditative. They go with memories of hot summer evenings.
All the sudden you realize this terrible noise has been going on since who knows when, and it sounds like the alien mothership is hovering. It sounds not of this Earth. The reptilian ETs must eat SOMETHING, besides humans, right? Cicadas sound like the kind of things they'd eat.
The cicadas in the deep south make a lovely song all summer. And they call in the rain. I adore that sound. Sleepy southern songs. And I wish we had lighting bugs in large numbers. I've only seen one so far. Same with the whipperwill. They've gone and it's sad.
@@HeatherMerrell I'm from the north but have visited all the southern states and the beautiful feeling that would come over me on those gorgeous southern nights and it's sounds
The outro almost made me cry. We have to remember to look down too. If we don't look down, we don't see the ecosystems we live amoung. Nature gives me hope for tomorrow.
I feel ya. Trump 2024.
This is why cars need to go away ASAP.
@@Kube_Dog why. What is trump gonna do that will heal nature. He will probably dig for more oil 😂
@@hardik875 You're like that kid who thinks math is bad because you don't understand it.
The universe is a privilege.Not a right.
Also: Please don't try to poison the cicadas! We had an emergence in 2021 and it coincided with an absolutely horrific mysterious bird illness that affected songbirds. The best hypothesis was that uninformed people were using a ton of pesticides to get rid of the cicadas (this was during the darker days of covid so people were home and noticing the cicadas more than in other years, and also spending more time in their backyards). The birds went blind and then had seizures and bled... sometimes while their mates watched and freaked the eff out. It was the worst. So please, tell your neighbors: enjoy the cicadas, share the planet.
The most important take-a-way from this show is spoken in the final minute
Is that when Ben and Jerry's made an emergency delivery that saved Neil from starvation?
Re: outro -- Several years ago I worked in an office/lab separated from the only wilderness area -- only a couple of blocks square, but home to thousands of small creatures -- in our urban setting. Then bulldozers and men with chain saws demolished the entire habitat in a matter of hours. All those animals, insects, reptiles lost their habitat in one day's time. Of course it was in order to build more buildings while the city remained full of renewable structures sitting abandoned and rotting. I've never forgotten and never will and still feel grief.
I TRULY loved the ending for this video. That is what makes you stand out from all other scientist Neil. God bless.
You can almost hear the gears spinning wildly in Neil’s head as he contemplates the right pronunciation of the word cicadas every time he has to say it.
If i were a science teacher id just play Star Talk every day.
Neil is fantastic, the way he explains everything, space, bugs, everything he is the cool guy of science. I love him.
Thank you Chuck for your respect and compassion.
I'm in Indiana out in the country, so i can't Wait to listen to them. They help me sleep
I live in Tampa Florida, and I have a cousin and uncle who live in a little tiny settlement called Shirley, Indiana. I don't know if you have ever heard of it or not? It's a short car drive from a town called Anderson, Indiana, which you might have heard of. Also, I flew to Indianapolis recently to see the solar eclipse on April 8th. I took an Uber ride from the airport to a small town called Franklin, Indiana, and that's where I actually saw the eclipse. It was awesome.
@@bobby1970 yeah I was fortunate enough to be able to walk out of my back door to see the eclipse, it looked like a giant dilated eye ball lol
As a child in Cuba cicadias were commom, our soil was not concrete everywhere. We knew how to catch them and kept them for their song, in Cuba we call them cigarras. I'm now 62 and miss their song
Following Startalk for a bit now and with your closing words of this episode you have earned my subscription :)
I first encountered cicadas during a summer in Illinois and Wisconsin many years ago. I quite enjoy hearing the cicada song. 🙂
I remember her from the last video she was on. Brilliant lady. Great content.
I spent nearly the first 50 years of my life in Kansas listening to these every summer evening. Now I haven't heard them since my last visit in 2011. I actually recorded this happening outside of my motel room. I really miss this sound! 😮
The broods generally come out in prime numbers which prevents overlap. That's so cool.
I always wondered what was making this very loud & intense sound. This was very enlightening; this lady is brilliant!
Watched them on BBC Earth by Sir David Attenborough and I’ve never forgotten them!
My dog absolutely loves eating newly hatched cicadas.....last time we were camping during a swarm hatching (camping in Brown County, Indiana), and my dog was hardly interested in her dog food, as she was so full of cicadas. The cicadas were so numerous that they were literally a carpet of cicadas everywhere - simply stunning.
It's not just your dog. Some asian friends enjoy them and say they taste kind of earthy. If you sauté them, especially with chili oil and soy sauce, they make a pretty good complement to food like rice and noodles 🍜
"literally." Twerp talk.
I lived in Waukegan, Illinois in 1990 and had to go to Chicago to do a land survey and the cicadas was one of the coolest things I have ever seen. All orange, holes everywhere like a pattern on the ground, I mean everywhere. So loud and just everywhere and I mean you was crunching no matter what. It was right in a downtown like area to, part residential, one of the burbs can’t remember exactly
gotta worry about a bout of pancreatitis - cicadas are high fat!
@@Shadow__133 Ha! Might just have to give em a try, after all, it's an earthly bounty that's about to occur. I've had saute'd grasshoppers before and I bet they're similar.
When I moved to New York City people did not believe me about 17 year cicadas! Thought I made it up!
Hello beautiful science loving peeps!❤
Hello
Salut!
Cicadas are one of nature’s treasures, like eclipses. This is my fourth and, unless I make it to 100, and last experience. They are wonderful
Love when nature sounds like I'm standing under Power Lines holding a Geiger-Counter all summer.
Beautiful talk, my personal astrophysicist!
Australian here. Spent my Sydney childhood hunting for Greengrocer cicadas but was a real coup if you found a black prince cicada. Gotta love childhood bragging rights! I miss the sound of Cicadas! (Apparently Colorado doesn’t get the cyclical cicadas 😔)
I love the sound they make! Very relaxing, sit in the backyard sip my Mai Tai and listen to the Cicadas!
Missouri here and I can’t wait. I lurve cicadas. I love their empty carcasses all over the trees. I love the sound they make. And they’re beautiful creatures. It’s the sound of summer and it puts me in that place.
Sgt that I worked with ate a cicada in 2004, south central Indiana. Sgt Poole, if you're out there...I could not forget that
Chuck makes science fun to understand and engage..Neil, the finishing was so touching, thank you
Thank you all for this amazingly educational podcast and for all the humor!
yes we share this earth....
In Calabria, Italy, we hear them every summer! 😃
I remember as a 13 -year -old marching in the parade stepping on cicadas on every step in Lisle Illinois in the 70's. there were so many.
BEAUTIMOUS posting, thank you, sincerely!
Greetings from El Salvador 🇸🇻
Living right on top of a mntn, it's fun to hear one entire side singing back and forth to the other. Communicating.
That's how it sounds, but not how it is.
@@Kube_Dog I didn't ask you, and you're wrong.
@@pddiddy74 I'm not wrong and when you make a comment you invite replies. Eat a d.
This is great! Makes me have more appreciation for cicadas. Thanks!
Very cool! She is so informative about something most know little about. Cheer!
I used to catch them and made them buzz. Don't worry, I always released them. 😊
Jon 'Cicada' fan-base is growing, wow: 'Hot Summer Nights' 'Too Late, Too Soon' 'Do You Believe in Us'
❤
Thank u, Neil, for bringing this subject up because everything does matter, and we all need to take that into consideration. I look at everything as equal, everything. Love ur show.
Thank you for this. Very engaging. Neil and Chuck are awesome as always, and Jessica is a fantastic guest! Looking forward to a loud and buzzy Spring-Summer 😄 …also, what a beautiful outro with a great reminder to have a larger perspective. Whatever people want to believe to keep themselves comfortable, motivated, or whatever, ultimately we are all just short-term tenants here on Nature’s vast and intricate turf, and we should as a group aim better to respect other Life around us accordingly.
Neat to find cicada shells.
I feel like I hear cicadas making a ruckus every summer down here in Georgia.
I remember climbing trees in Texas when I was a child and trying to catch them. And when I would catch one they would make the most astounding sound!❤❤❤❤
A+ Cicadas 'talking' is part of the summer experience. Thank you for ending the segment with your 'Cosmic Perspective', which is so true and real. Mother Nature's babies are individuals with a life trajectory. Sadly, we do not know what is gone until it's gone. Once the Rain Forests and rural areas are developed, it's too late to turn back, the ecosystems have been destroyed, as well as, all of the occupants no matter the species...
I love how Neil says Ci-cah-duh so many times that the scientist by the end stops saying Ci-cay-duh and just joins him at around the 8:35 mark. LOL
I noticed this too 😂
He seems to love to pronounce words differently than the experts.
Perfect timing! Greetings from Poland!
Yeah great. You have poles to climb up. Lucky you!
hello from uk 🙂
@@savagepro9060 right? and everything is polished!
Great conclusion Sir
I grew up in a small New England town, living close to wooded areas, what someone living in a large city would probably call living in the country. I'll always remember the sound you hear when you stand outside just after sunset, like a beating pulse of insect noises. I really noticed it after not being back there for more than 10 years and standing outside for the first time since then.
Ever seen cicada killers? Like giant bees. Infested my lawn and I couldn't get rid of them so we just embraced them. They aren't dangerous and really neat.
They are wasps, also called sand hornets. They aren't aggressive to humans, but may sting if provoked. But their sting is not too bad.
Yes, very scary looking but not aggressive toward humans. I don't think they sting they use their mandible? Does anyone kno? But yes had them before also. They live in the ground, naturally, like cicadas.
@Shadow__133 oh sorry, that's what I get for not reading through. Thanks for the info...
@@Shadow__133They're not wasps.
I was camping last time 2 broods came out and it was an insane scene of huge cicada killers going to war.
Down south in Arkansas will be crazy loud
Facts fordyce
Listening to them right now in central Florida....
Thanks for reminding me I will keep looking up
Oh my God thank you so much for talking about this I've been wondering and no one's been talking about it and now here we are so thank you thank you
Thanks for letting your guest talk Neil!! lol!
I never knew I needed this type of info. Totally enjoyed this guest.
Just heard you speak in SLC and I’m super glad I got to. Thanks for coming out I feel much more optimistic and lucky to be alive. @StarTalk
Wow wonderful conversation i enjoy so much ❤️❤️ thank you for the information
I say cicada you say cicada, let’s call the whole thing off
😂 POINTS!
This comment should get more likes.
Why does he keep saying it like it rhymes with frittata. 😂😂😂😂
He was saying it correctly in the beginning 😂😅 what the heck.
Yeah I feel like I've been pronouncing it wrong my whole life
You say cicada, I say cicatta
"Tah- may-toe, tah- mah-toe..."
I absolutely love these conversations! 💕☀️🌱🌺
Beautiful message sir!
The 1st time in my KZhead viewing history i am the 1st viewer of this video....
So what? 🤡
Humbug!
Thanks as always! I love Cicada season. Reminds me of my childhood. It always gives me a little reprieve from my tinnitus, lol. These both sound very similar nowadays. 😂
Chuck asked about whether they have figured out how to use a microphone. I don't know about cicadas, but I heard some crickets have done that. The males sing from inside a hole in a leaf or burrow that makes their song louder.
Exactly why I leave and try to preserve my land as it was.
I love the sound. It reminds me of visiting my grandparents on their farm when I was a kid.
I can remember as a kid on the south side of Chicago during the summer time around sunset 🌅 u will hear them get very loud, so I know it going to be louder. I moved to las Vegas so don’t have to worry about that this time lol❤
In Central Indiana and I love to hear the cicadas. A couple of years ago, we were expecting two very large broods to coincide. Here at home I never heard anything, but we went to southern Indiana and could hear them as we were driving down the road with windows up and radio playing, they were so loud!
This was so interesting. I have lived in rural areas and heard many a cicada calling for a mate. It is just nature. :)
Here in S.C. we have two cicada eruptions !!! The 17yr and 13 yr at the same time !! You cannot hear yourself think ,the noise is deafening !! Shells from when they came out of ground stuck everywhere and dead ones falling from everywhere .... It's Crazy !!!!!
Love this my nephew should be highly entertained.
I've always wondered where that sound came from. Thanks :)
A memory I have as a child was walking down the gravel road on a hot summer day hearing the loud Cicada song, but I always thought it was the powerline buzzing.
Thank you guys for doing this, some people have never seen them,😊
I remember a pretty big emergence in Kansas, summer 1980. It was interesting until one got in my room through the box fan and flew around and around, screaming. Speaking of not being around, this year's calendar won't repeat for 28 years. I won't be around for it (normally I save calendars for re-use).
What a fun and interesting discussion. Thanks
Thanks for reminding me of one of the reasons I moved from Chicagoland to a desert.
There’s a 17 year brood in Maryland and it’s amazing how many there are . The bushes and small tree branches start sagging with their weight . They only last 6 weeks . Remarkable animals
Cicada song - my favorite summer sound
Us in idaho had a massive cicada emergence last year first I've experienced was really cool!!! But they are surprisingly aware and hard to catch!!
The shells they leave behind are so cool! My papa wouldn't clean them up when I was little and I would find 'em like some kinda easter egg hunt.
That's so interesting. Being from Georgia I hear that sound and I had already associated that sound with time for turning on the AC. Never knew what that sound really was until now.
I pronounce cicada with the a sound like cane. I lived down south & every summer they were intense. I heard them here once in Massachusetts years ago. Can’t wait to hear them again. A double dose. Nature is so cool.
Thank you for this one. I now know that I've seen the same ones that are going to be emerging. Never knew that as a kid, we lived above one of their previous prooding grounds. I didn't even know that I had seen a special kind of cicada until now.
They are out here in Augusta ga right now. Love hearing them