As we shed the winter weather and move into the warmer months, there's one thing we know for sure that is on the way: cicadas. After 17 years, Brood X, also called Brood 10, will make their way into the world in mid-May, according to WRAL.
Billions of the little flying creatures will burrow out from their underground slumber and seemingly cover every available service outside and sound the chorus that only they can produce. North Carolinians know all too well the cacophony of sound that comes whenever cicadas finally emerge.
"It can be deafening," one man at the Morganton greenway told WBTV on Wednesday (April 14).
While it may look like a Biblical plague, cicadas are largely harmless. Donna Teasley is an agriculture extension agent who said that people shouldn't fear the little creatures, despite their looks and bright red eyes.
"They are quite horrifying," she said. "Their bark is worse than their bite and they don't bite."
According to WBTV, the nearest hotspot for the insects will be along the North-Carolina-Tennessee border, due to the abundance of trees in the Appalachian Mountains. When they emerge, cicadas make their way to various branches to lay their eggs before they die. Eventually the tips of the branches also die, sending the insect eggs into the ground and starting the buggy process all over again.
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