Animal Population

Cicadas by State 2025

13- or 17-year Cicada Broods Present

Yes
No
  • Map shows states known to have 13- or 17-year cicada broods. Annual cicadas (which still live underground for years, but some of which emerge each year instead of at multi-year intervals) may still appear in states marked red, particularly in the Southwest. For example, Colorado is home to 29 species of annual cicada and Arizona may have as many as 50 species.
  • Most cicadas have an annual life cycle. However, a handful of North American species live much longer, spending 13 or 17 years underground as nymphs. Then then emerge, molt into adults, mate, lay eggs, and die all within a few weeks.
  • Despite living more than a decade, these “periodical” cicadas instinctively emerge in large groups, called “broods”, with all members of a given brood emerging within a few weeks of one another. This adaptation maximizes the cicadas’ changes of successfully mating.
  • As such, the number of cicadas present from one year to the next can vary immensely depending upon which broods emerge each year.
  • For example, the Brood IV cicadas emerged in eastern Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Nebraska in 2015, but won’t do so again until 2032. Similarly, the Brood XIX cicadas spiked populations in Alabama (among other states) in 2024 and should appear again in 2038.
  • As of 2024, the US Department of Agriculture had identified and was tracking twelve 17-year broods and three 13-year broods.