A cicada in sync with its brood is a cicada with a chance. The insects’ synchronized emergence is an evolutionary strategy, scientists say. Birds, raccoons and other predators can eat only so many of them. So the more cicadas emerge together, the better the odds that more will live on to reproduce and pass along their genes. “They have the safety-in-numbers strategy,” said Chris Simon, a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Connecticut who studies the insects.
“If you look at the data, we definitely have more reports of straggling now than we ever did in the past,” Cooley said. “That could be because there’s more straggling than there was in the past or because we have the internet and if you see this strange bug in the yard, you can send it in.” Simon said Brood XIII, which is emerging this year, produced a record number of stragglers in 2020. “This time four years ago, there were so many that they were out for the entire four weeks,” she said.