The East Coast Could See Up To One Trillion Cicadas This Year. Trillion. With A “T.”

Hey there. How are you? No, really, how are you? How’s work? Good? You ever get that promotion? What?! They gave it to Larry? Really? Ugh, that guy is awful. I’m sorry to hear that. You getting out to play a little golf, at least? This is the weather for it, you know, before it starts getting too hot. Once July hits, hoo boy. Turns into a real sweatbox out there.

Oh, me? Not much. Just getting ready for ONE TRILLION CICADAS TO INVADE THE EAST COAST, that’s all!

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. [AP]

Allow me to put that in perspective for you in a way that doesn’t involve stacking bugs into the cosmos: THAT IS SO MANY CICADAS. I mean, one trillion. What if they’ve been down there plotting? Seventeen years is a long time. They could have come up with some pretty good attack strategies. And with a one trillion bug army — over 100 for each man, woman, and child on the planet — they could be capable of anything. Stay alert, people. That’s all I’m saying.

Personally, I’m hoping the swarm just deposits rappers all over the place. We’ve seen this type of thing before, after all.

[via io9]

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