The May 18, 2024, Fox Lake/Grant Township Historical Society meeting featured a very timely talk by the Lake County Forest on "The Past, Present & Future of Cicadas."
We had been waiting and waiting for them to arrive, and guess what... "They're Here!!" But not everywhere. The last week, I discovered lots of cicadas around two of my trees in the front yard. The last time around for them, 17 years ago, I had none, but the house had been built in 1992 and my site was farmland, so not likely to get them.
In Illinois, there are two different types of cicadas: the 17-year and the 13-year. We have the 17-year ones in Lake and McHenry counties. 13-year ones are mostly in the central and southern part of the state. (There are also yearly cicadas, but not so numerous as the two broods out now.)
Across the world, there are 3,100 species of cicadas with 190 in North America.
Cicadas are easily the loudest of insects, able to emit 100 decibels of sound, about the level of a lawn mower.
--DaCoot
