A buzzing cicada symphony will soon fill Illinois’s trees as periodical cicada broods XII and XIX are due to emerge from the ground in May and June. The simultaneous emergence of the Great Southern brood and the Northern brood only occurs every 221 years, making this spectacle a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
To mark this rare occasion, the Field Museum is hosting a series of cicada-centric events to celebrate these magnificent bugs that are coming to us by the trillions.
Want to know what to expect?
Check our our latest blog to learn what you will see and hear the next several weeks as trillions of cicadas emerge!
Featured Events
Cicadas Take Flight Storytime & Craft
On June 26, families with 2-6-year-olds are invited to the Crown Family PlayLab for a PlayLab PlayDate featuring cicadas!
Meet a Scientist: Cicada Series
Join us in the Grainger Science Hub every Wednesday from May 15—June 26 to get up close and personal with cicadas from the Museum’s behind-the-scenes collections and speak with Field Museum scientists about everything cicadas, from life cycle to ecological impact.
What to do if you find a blue-eyed cicada
Blue-eyed cicadas are one in a million— but with billions of bugs emerging this spring, that still means a lot of blue-eyed cicadas! We are so grateful to the people who have found blue-eyed cicadas and donated them to the Field Museum’s research collections. At this point, we’ve got plenty of representative blue-eyed specimens from this emergence, and do not require any more. If you find a blue-eyed cicada, you and your cicada pal can still help scientists studying this phenomenon by taking a photograph of it and uploading it to Cicada Safari (for Apple and Google) and iNaturalist. Thank you for being a community scientist and taking the time to admire the magic of Magicicada!
