About every year (on 13-17 year cycles), cicadas emerge from their underground slumber to fill Northeast Ohio with their glorious humming. A cycle of insects known as the 17-year Brood VIII cicadas are next to show up sometime this month in parts of Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia.
Thankfully, the good people at Mount St. Joseph University out of Cincinnati, have concocted a fun method to observe the bugs with the Cicada Safari app (found in most app stores).
When a user spies one of the insects, they can take a photo with the app that can then be used on the broader season cicada map. That way scientists, with the help of the public, can track exactly where the bugs are popping up.
Cicadas, as strange and large as they are, do not bite and are not harmful to humans.
Find out more about the cicada project right here.
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This article appears in May 1-7, 2019.