2023 Magicicada Straggler Alert!
Spring is in full swing, and with the big double emergence coming up next year of Magicicada broods XIII (17-year, Chicago area) and XIX (13-year, southeast US), we are fixin' to see a lot of stragglers...those unlucky cicadas who lose track of time and emerge off-cycle, generally doomed to a short and lonely adulthood. Stragglers are of interest to Magicicada researchers because they can provide clues as to how the cicadas mark time (or lose count of the years) and to how the broods may be accelerating, decelerating, or changing their boundaries.
I created the 2023 Magicicada Stragglers project to collect observations of Magicicada emerging off-cycle in 2023. We've already got 40 observations at the time of writing, representing at least four broods: X, XIII, XIX, and XXII, with a "mystery cicada" here and there. Stragglers are expected to emerge through May and into mid-June (especially in northern states, where they'll come out a bit later), so keep an eye and ear out for them, and happy iNatting!
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