Cicadas are everywhere in the woods and our yards — thousands emerging every day. You’ll see their emergent holes in the ground, the abandoned exoskeletons, and adults attached to shrubs and trees. In our yard even the ferns are covered. You can not only hear the ominous buzzing in the background but if you listen close enough, there’s also a rustle sound of them emerging from the ground and climbing up through leaf litter. Please enjoy this phenomenal display of nature’s diversity. The cicadas do not bite and in general do not harm plants either — though the females will use an ovipositor to cut a slit in small branches of trees and shrubs (pencil sized limbs preferred) and lay her eggs there — I like to think of it as a free trimming job as these branches will die and most eventually drop to the ground allowing the cycle to continue as larvae return to the ground for another 17 years of eating roots.
An emerging adult cicada
Adult cicadas can be seen climbing on plants.
Learn more from University of MD entomologists http://bugoftheweek.com/