After months of anticipation, the cicadas have finally made their grand entrance ... and promptly overstayed their welcome.
They've become the talk of one county in South Carolina, but not in the way these little bugs had hoped. In fact, things have gotten so out of hand that people called the police to deal with the buzzing madness.
But the Newberry County Sheriff's Office took to social media on Tuesday to let their community know that while those chirping critters might be a bit too loud, it's best to resist the urge to call the cops over their racket.
“We have had several calls about a noise in the air that sounds like a siren, or a whine, or a roar. The sound is cicadas. Cicadas are a super family of insects that appear each spring. The nymphs have lived underground for 13-17 years and now this time they are hatching. Although to some, the noise is annoying, they pose no danger to humans or pets. Unfortunately, it is the sounds of nature,” thesheriff's office stated.
Brood XIX and Brood XII have officially made their way out of the ground at the same time, unleashing billions, perhaps trillions, of cicadas into the wild (for most of them, the wild is your backyard).
While Brood XIII is mostly in Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin and near Lake Michigan, the one that got the cops called on them, Brood XIX, is in Alabama, Missouri, Mississippi, Tennessee, and parts of Arkansas, Georgia, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, North and South Carolina, Oklahoma and Virginia.
But no need to fret; you will soon have peace again! These cicadas won't be sticking around for long. Experts from the University of Missouri Extension say they'll only be buzzing around for about four to six weeks, as they die shortly after mating and/or laying eggs.
