That buzzing sound you hear…. is the Brood X periodical cicada, set to descend—or rather emerge—in the eastern United States sometime this spring. These 17-year cicadas, of the genus Magicicada, were last seen in Ann Arbor in 2004.
Tom O’Dell, Matthaei-Nichols natural areas specialist, remembers the day he saw the cicadas in a grove of buckeye trees at the botanical gardens. “There were thousands of individuals on the branches and trunks,” Tom recalls. “They were so loud a co-worker and I could not hold a conversation within five feet of each other at normal volume.”
