Cicadas emerge en masse; Christine explains it all

Hello, we are here

Coming out of its shell

Cicadas have been appearing over the past couple of weeks around Dan and Julie's house in New Jersey, but Monday evening brought a sudden mass emergence from the backyard.

Dan, Julie, Christine, Andy and some friends were finishing a little Memorial Day cookout when Christine noticed that, where there had been handfuls of cicadas moving through the grass, there were now hundreds.

Still wearing their brown shells, the critters crawled to trees and fences and then started climbing upward. At some point each cicada would stop, wriggle out of its shell and then pause to dry off and unfurl its wings, completing its transition to the adult stage.

Taking their adult form

The process seemed to take a few hours for each bug, but with hundreds if not thousands of them swarming around the yard, it was easy to find examples of each stage. Here, Christine gives a quick lesson.



Earlier in the weekend, Christine captured these great photos of adult cicadas.