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If you live in the Midwest or the Southeast, you know the cicadas are coming.
And if you live in Chicago, you know the Cicadalypse is coming.
Cicadas, winged buggy noisemakers whose relatives include leaf-hoppers and spittle bugs, come in two varieties: the annual cicadas who, sure enough, appear every year and the periodical cicadas, who appear in 13-year and 17-year cycles.
This year, however, those two periodical broods — known officially as Brood XIX, the Great Southern Brood and Brood XIII, the Northern Illinois Brood — will emerge at the same time, and in some parts of central Illinois, side-by-side.
The double-emergence hasn’t happened since 1803. For a little perspective, consider that in 1803 Chicago was not yet a city, just a fort built at the intersection of what is now Michigan Avenue and Wacker... Read more
