Talk about killing the buzz.
Despite some news reports to the contrary, the newest influx of periodic cicadas — the red-eyed, at times comically clumsy aggravation with wings — will not descend upon Maryland in 2025.
The source of the misunderstanding appears to be a map in the 2025 Old Farmer’s Almanac that incorrectly states that Maryland can expect an onslaught of Brood XIV (14) cicadas this year.
“I’m trying to stay calm about this,” Gaye Williams, an entomologist with the Maryland Department of Agriculture said after reluctantly picking up the phone, “but Brood 14 is not in Maryland. It never has been. It never will be.”
For proof, she pointed to the website cicadas.info, which she described as the definitive source on cicada populations in the U.S. And sure enough, the Mid-Atlantic Brood Map, which tracks cicada populations in Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia, shows Brood 14 utterly bypassing the Free State.
“Maryland has Broods 2, 5, 10 and 19,” Williams said. “That’s it.”
And Brood 19, she added, barely qualifies as a local bug. It surfaces every 13 years in just a tiny part of southern Maryland, but Williams refuses to divulge the specific location in the interests of protecting the nymphs from people inclined to dig them up. Brood 19 surfaced last summer, and is now enjoying a long rest before emerging again in 2037.
Cicada groupies — people fascinated by the critters, who travel around the country to trace the emergence of each new brood and who experiment with cicada cuisine and jam along to the cicadas call with their own musical instruments — will have to visit central Pennsylvania or southern West Virginia to experience Brood 14 this summer.
The other brood expected to emerge this year, the relatively small Brood I, can be encountered in the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia and West Virginia, as well as in parts of Tennessee and Long Island, New York.
Maryland’s last influx of the periodic cicadas was in 2021, when the prolific Brood X (Brood 10) emerged, looking lost and confused as they weighed down branches of young trees, became tangled in people’s hair, and served as an all-you-can-eat buffet for the state’s population of delighted robins.
But while Williams wishes that people would stop calling to ask her about cicadas — she has plenty of other work to do — she offers this consolation to the bugs’ many fans: While Maryland won’t see any of the periodic cicadas this year, the annual cicadas are another story.
The so-called “dog-day cicadas” are a bit larger than their long-slumbering cousins, though visually less flashy, with brown or green eyes and the distinctively lacy wings. They make their presence felt later in the summer, surfacing in June and embarking on their throaty mating thrum in August.
Williams wishes that the cicada-phobic would just chill out. She pointed out that neither the annual nor periodic cicadas sting or bite. They do not carry diseases harmful to humans or pets.
“If you see 100 bugs,” Williams said, “95 of them could care less about you. They are doing their thing or actually helping people by pollinating plants.
“But somehow, we’re sure that the bugs are all out to get us.”
Have a news tip? Contact Mary Carole McCauley at mmccauley@baltsun.com and 410-332-6704.