Cicadas by State 2025

  • 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.