LOUISVILLE, Ky. — They're here.
The opening line may seem ominous and while the buzzy bugs greatly outnumber humans they are harmless. For several weeks the basically famous Brood X cicada has been emerging from the ground throughout several Midwest and Appalachian states.
The Highlands neighborhood in Louisville seems to the city's first hot spot while at press time the critters were just beginning to pop up in other parts of the city like Iriquois Park.
“Seems like we’re getting pretty warm and going to be up around 90, especially if it rains, if we get some moisture in the ground they are really going to come up," Blair Leano-Helvey told Spectrum News 1. Leano-Helvey is an entomologist with Idlewild Butterfly Farm in Louisville.
The periodical cicada comes up out of the ground every 17 years. Math tells us the last time Brood X was above ground was 2004. While culturally the red-eyed bugs have missed out on a lot Leano-Helvey says they are only interested in a few things, "Their sole purpose is to find love, mate, lay eggs."
The cicadas seem to come in two different colors, a dark red and creamy white, however our bug expert says every cicada will go through changes while they are here.
"What you are probably describing is them coming up from the ground and coming out of their shell and they are very white, kind of a cream color and what they are doing next is 'sclerotzing,' that just means they are hardening and darkening," Leano-Helvey explains.