Illinois Forestry Staff Act Out Cicada Cycle in Hilarious Explainer Video

Forestry workers in Illinois donned insect costumes and put on award-worthy performances in a hilarious explainer video released on May 1 that details how 17-year periodical cicadas will emerge from the ground in the weeks ahead.

The comical video from the DuPage County Forest Preserve District features staff members pretending to be cicadas as they emerge from the soil, climb up trees, and try to attract mates, as the district’s ecology supervisor, Tom Velat, talks through the life cycle of the cicadas. Credit: DuPageForest.org via Storyful

Video transcript

Where we are in the life cycle right now is the cicadas are hiding right just below the soil surface and emerge when the temperatures are right.It's roughly around 64 degrees soil temperature and they'll come out, crawl up trees or other inanimate objects like garages and stuff and they will crawl out of their exoskeletal shell, which is the, the shell that they were in, in the nymph form and they'll emerge as an adult.And at this point, they're soft bodied, they're kind of white.Uh, they haven't really gotten their true colors yet.It takes about 2 to 3 days for their, for their bodies to firm up their new exoskeletons to firm up and they become their true colors.They, they get to like a really dark brown, almost black color.Their wings become this really bright orange, uh, which is very cool and they'll have the distinctive red eyes.And after about a week after they emerge, the males will go, uh, crawl up to the tops of the trees and start singing to attract mates.And when they do this, the females will start to fly around them.And if they want to show that a male is, you know, worthy of her.Uh She will flick her wings at him and they will mate.Say girl, if I was a fruit fly, I'd land on you first because you're so sweet.And then the female cicada will, then she'll lay her eggs um, on branches and even main stems of trunks.What she does, she cuts a little groove into the branch to get to the vascular tissue of the tree.She'll lay her eggs into that groove about 600 eggs.So it's quite a lot.And uh those eggs will, then after about six or seven weeks, they'll hatch into very, very small nymphs.They're about the size of very small ant.And uh they'll start feeding on that, the sap flowing from that vascular tissue and then they'll feed for a short period of time and then they'll fall to the ground.Uh They'll start burrowing into the ground and then start feeding on plant roots, both trees as well as uh as like herbaceous plants.And then they'll hang out there really feeding and growing for the next 17 years.Then they'll, they will emerge in that 17th year.The nymphs will come back up to the surface of the soil in the process.Starts over again.