Bill McIlwain of Winston-Salem has a question that’s been bugging him:
“I’m curious about the cicadas that I’ve heard so much about. People tell me that they’ve heard them in Durham and elsewhere in the state. What’s going on?”
In the latest edition of Carolina Curious, WFDD’s Paul Garber tackles this buzz-worthy topic.
So, first things first. We get cicadas every year. This year is special though because our annual group is being joined by a separate brood that only comes out once every thirteen years.
Their sounds are similar, but they’re easy to tell apart visually says Daniel Greene, an entomologist and assistant professor of biology at High Point University.
“So our annual cicadas, they're going to be green and black in coloration, whereas your periodical cicadas are going to be black-bodied with orange wing veins, and they have red eyes,” he says.
The key to seeing or hearing them is, like