Cicada the Seventeen Year Locust

Magicicada is the genus of the 13- and 17- year periodical cicadas of eastern North America. These insects display a unique combination of long life cycles, periodicity, and mass emergences. They sometimes go by the common name "seventeen-year locust", but they are not locusts at all; locusts belong to the order Orthoptera. Brood X, a seventeen year brood from Washington DC stretching North to New York, South to North Carolina, West to Illinois and Michigan. The images displayed were photographed around the Washington DC metro area as they emerged from the ground in May 2004.