Cicadas Blanket Parts of US

ALEXANDRIA, VIRGINIA - Billions, perhaps even trillions, of cicadas are emerging from the soil over a six-week period in more than a dozen U.S. states. The Washington region, including Northern Virginia, is a hot spot for the plentiful but short-lived thumb-sized insect that some find fascinating and others unnerving.

Entomologist Floyd Shockley searched a wooded area in Alexandria, Virginia, for the harmless insects, which slowly climb out of the ground every 17 years from under the deciduous trees on which they feed. "There's a couple of adults over here," Shockley said as he gently picked up a black creature with translucent wings and prominent red eyes. Shockley is the collections manager at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington. Today, he is collecting specimens for research. More than 3,000 kinds of cicadas can be found worldwide. While many appear annually, some U.S. varieties spring from the ground either every 17 or 13 years. The cicadas currently blanketing the Washington area are known as Brood X (10).