30 Billion Cicadas About To Come Out Of 17 Years Of Hiding To Swarm The East Coast

io9 – The cicada onslaught grows nigh. Already the sex-crazed insects have begun burrowing their tiny bodies from out the depths of America’s southern soils, where ground temperatures have already reached a steady 64 degrees. But soon, the cicadas’ northerly relatives will reach the end of their 17-year dormancy and emerge in full force – and in numbers you won’t believe. A conservative – we repeat: conservative – estimate touted by several experts puts the ratio of cicadas to humans in the region of North Carolina to Connecticut at 600 to 1. That’s 30 billion cicadas to the area’s 50.6-million people. It is also (we repeat a third time) the lower estimate. According to the Associated Press (emphasis added): This year’s invasion, Brood II, is one of the bigger ones. Several experts say that they really don’t have a handle on how many cicadas are lurking underground but that 30 billion seems like a good estimate. At the Smithsonian Institution, researcher Gary Hevel thinks it may be more like 1 trillion. Even if it’s merely 30 billion, if they were lined up head to tail, they’d reach the moon and back. “There will be some places where it’s wall-to-wall cicadas,” says University of Maryland entomologist Mike Raupp

So let me get this straight. We got Snakehead Fish invading our waters and now anywhere between 30 billion and a fucking trillion cicadas are about to come out from underground and fuck all over the place? No thanks. Best case scenario is they ruffle their wings all fucking loud and annoy the shit out of us. Most likely the fuck all over the east coast and leave their body shells on your porch and roof and cars and pools and shit. Worst case scenario Brood II decides this is finally the time they just take over the world and they overrun us. I don’t care how harmless this bug is, 1 trillion of anything can take over the planet earth. Somebody get Richard Branson on the line and tell him to get his spaceships ready before the ground reaches 64 degrees. Time to go to Mars.