This is a misnomer, because true locusts are grasshoppers, not cicadas. Based on year of adult emergence, cicadas are grouped into broods with each brood appearing during a different year. Due to staggered development, adults are emerging somewhere almost every year, and some areas may even have more than one emergence during a 17-year period. They are not capable of biting or stinging. Adults live about 4 to 6 weeks during which their sole purpose is to mate and lay eggs.
Males are responsible for the droning noise as they call for mates.
Adult Cicada Adult cicadas do not feed. Damage occurs when the female cicada cuts two parallel slits in small twigs where she lays 24 to 28 eggs. Sometimes a continuous slit 2 to 3 inches long is formed as she slowly makes her way up a twig. The eggs hatch in 6 weeks, and young cicadas, or nymphs, fall to the ground where they burrow into the soil and spend the next 17 years feeding on small roots. At the end of this time, usually in May and early June, nymphs crawl out of the soil and climb up tree trunks or other vertical objects where they shed their nymphal skins and emerge as adults.