If you haven’t heard, the time has come for our summer nights to be filled with those cries of the infamous cicadas. This year there will be two different species emerging from childhood at the same time.

Robert Sanders, a retired cicada researcher, explains the difference between the two species of cicadas.

The species’ in question are Broods 13 year 19 and 17 year 13. Each brood number is assigned in the year it emerges.

Oklahoma is only going to see Brood 13 as the periodicals are mainly in Ohio; coming up to about the Adair and Southern McCurtain county in Oklahoma.

Sanders says that cicadas are pretty harmless to crops, flowers, and bushes, but may be another story for trees.

Cicadas molt five times because their skeletal system is on the outside of their bodies much like shrimp. Sanders says that the forms we see with wings are the final adult stage of a cicada.

Sander also explains where the noise we usually hear during the summer comes from.

Sanders says that the best place to witness the cicadas in Oklahoma is at Beavers Bend State Park in Broken Bow, Oklahoma.