Cicadas come with an itchy pest — nearly invisible mites that can cause rashes and travel with the wind

This year's cicada emergence was a double whammy of insects, with two groups of periodical cicadas that only come out of the ground every 13 or 17 years making a simultaneous appearance. But even after the two broods go back underground, it seems as though they may leave something pesky and itchy behind. 

According to WebMD, cicada eggs are a food source for oak leaf itch mites — tiny arachnids that aren't even a quarter of a millimeter in length and that are "invisible to the naked eye." Each fall, several states have reported outbreaks of the pests, otherwise known as Pyemotes herfsi. They've been linked to cicadas before, with the Illinois Department of Public Health releasing a report in 2008 that said cicadas were the only insect parasitized by the mites the year prior. It was the first confirmed report of the mites terrorizing cicada eggs at the time. 

"Brood XIII periodical cicadas emerged earlier in the year and laid large numbers of eggs in the terminal branches of many deciduous tree species in the outbreak area," the report says. "It appears that this abundance of cicada eggs served as the host upon which populations of P. herfsi mites amplified to outbreak levels."