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Is This Gross Video What's In Store For Us When The Cicadas Wake Up?
By
Ben Yakas
Published May 17, 2013
Modified May 18, 2013
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By
Ben Yakas
Published May 17, 2013
Modified May 18, 2013
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For 17 years, the Brood II cicadas have been dormant underground, patiently biding their time while Daft Punk took over the world. Now that the humans have become distracted with their bike sharing and their pregnant Beyoncés, it is finally time for billions of them to emerge and become our entrees. And today in Virginia, we had the first sightings of the horny giant insects, as you can see in the gross video below. Moments like this, we're actually glad we don't have a backyard to serve as an unofficial sex pit.
We still don't know exactly when the cicadas will emerge around these parts, although The Star-Ledger reports that it should be around Memorial Day Weekend (at least in NJ). You can track them here with the Swarmaggedon map.
But an important thing to keep in mind: even though cicadas are not harmful for crazy insect-loving humans to devour, it's not good for pets to eat their leftover exoskeletons (of which there will literally be BILLIONS littered across the East Coast). "Imagine a yard full of chicken nuggets — that's sort of what it's going to be like," Randall Lockwood, a Humane Society vice president and animal behaviorist told USA Today. If you want to know what that looks like, just consult the handy freaky gif (via Wiki) below:
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bugs
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Ben Yakas
Ben Yakas is a former Gothamist reporter.
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