This happens only once every 221 years. The last time was during Thomas Jefferson’s presidency, to give you an idea. When the soil warms to about 64 degrees F, the nymphs climb up from underground onto tree trunks, shed their exoskeletons and dry their wings.

This year’s cicada groups, known as Brood XIII and Brood XIX, happened to make their homes next to one another, with a narrow overlap in central Illinois.

“Billions of the winged insects will make an appearance across the Midwest and the Southeast, beginning in some places in late April, for a raucous mating ritual,” Chow wrote. New York won’t be affected.

There is interest among some entomologists whether the two broods will cross-breed, and, if so, what the results will be. Researchers at the University of Connecticut don’t hold out much hope for that possibility. They point out that 13-year Brood XIX and 17-year Brood XIII don’t overlap except perhaps around Springfield, Illinois, in small patches of woods, and besides, there is too much resemblance between the broods to tell them apart.

Periodical cicadas spend years underground, while annual cicadas are underground only a year before emerging.

In New York state, according to the “New York Almanack,” we have annual emergence of native cicadas. Brood XIV will be the next periodical brood to emerge in 2025 on Long Island, followed by Brood II in 2030 in the Lower Hudson Valley and Brood VII in 2035 in western New York.

My interest in cicadas began with an article Molly sent me some years back, titled “Hallucinogenic fungi Turn Cicadas into Sex-Crazed Zombies,” by Madeleine Gregory. Another scholarly treatise is “Fungal Hallucinogens Send Cicadas on Sex Binges after their Genitals Fall Off,” by Mike McCrae.

Scientists have discovered that as cicadas emerge from their nymph stage and come crawling out of the earth, some of them become infected with the fungus massospora. This fungus produces an amphetamine similar to the recreational drug mephedrone as well as psilocybin, the chemical responsible for the magic in magic mushrooms. The fungus consumes the cicada’s organs and causes its rear end and genitals to fall off, while increasing its energetic propensity to try to mate. The tail end of the cicada is replaced by a relatively large plug of fungus spores, inspiring McCrae’s term for infected cicadas, “Mini crop dusters of doom.”

McCrae writes, “Even as the cicada bodies turn moldy and start losing parts — including bits of their abdomen and their genitals — they don’t slow down.”

West Virginia mycologist assistant professor Matt Kassan calls them “flying salt shakers of death,” as they rain down spores on the ground and on other cicadas. Zombie fungi expert David Hughes has referred to ants infected with a different fungus that acts in a similar way as “fungus in ants’ clothing.”

In Merlin Sheldrake’s informative and very readable book on fungi, “Entangled Life,” he explains how, in 2018, Kassan and his team analyzed the chemical profile of “the fungal plugs that sprout from the cicadas’ broken bodies.” They were astonished, Sheldrake wrote, to discover the presence of the amphetamine cathinone, as well as psilocybin, but how these chemicals may work to manipulate the insect to the advantage of the Massaspora fungus was not known.

Back to healthy, nonzombified cicadas.

The male’s mating song, a high-pitched buzz, can reach up to 100 decibels, roughly equivalent to a motorcycle or jackhammer. According to the Missouri Department of Conservation, this song, produced by a drumlike structure on its abdomen, can drown out a chain saw.

How can you tell annual and periodical cicadas apart? Periodical cicadas have black bodies with orange markings and red eyes. You will see adults in May and June. Annual cicadas have brown, green and white bodies with dark eyes, and adults can be seen from late June to August.

More information from the Missouri Department of Conservation: You can use them for bait!

“A periodical cicada emergence creates a brief food bonanza for birds and fish. It also creates opportunities for anglers. As fish go on feeding binges, anything resembling a cicada can prompt a bite.”

Have a good week.

(Martha Allen, of Keene Valley, has been writing for the Lake Placid News for more than 20 years.)