This is the summer that students get our visit from little buzzing friends. Every 17 years this periodical cicada remerges from under the ground and starts its life as the flying bug.

“I have seen some dead, but I haven’t seen any live ones and I’m scared to. Their noise is frightening but soothing at times,” said freshman Ana Ruiz.

Once the cicadas are hatched from rice-looking eggs, they stay underground for two to seventeen years in order for them to drink from fluids that are in tree’s roots. When they are ready to come out, they climb the tree they are near and the hard shells they are in slowly molts off and they then grow their wings. Different types of cicadas are brighter than others. Some kinds of cicadas, like the ones this summer have red eyes while others have green or white eyes. Cicadas tend to have a short life. They have three stages of life; egg, nymph, and adult. Since it takes them awhile to grow from an egg into an adult, they end up coming into people’s yards in a certain amount of years. This makes them periodical. “They are nosy but colorful. One died on my deck and I took a look at since it wasn’t crushed or alive, and they are colorful. I thought they would be an ugly brown color but no they are interesting,” said ninth grade PE teacher Randy Bills.

In all there are about 3,000 kinds of cicadas in the world today including the periodical cicada that waits almost two decades to come out. There are also other periodical ones including the one that came in 2004-2005 year.

“I haven’t seen any yet but when I was in second grade and they were here I kind of liked them because they were interesting,” said sophomore Nicole Harmon.

The cicadas can became memories for some. “When I was little, me and my cousins would pick their shells off of tree trunks and see who could get the most. I’m not doing anything really to prevent or be prepared for them because I like them. It reminds me of being a kid,” said freshmen Alivia Corwin.

Some like them and some don’t. They can be very loud with their overpowering hum but not dangerous at all. They do not bite or sting, just buzz. “They are irritating and a nuisance but are not harmful to us at all,” said Sub school secretary Carol Buschman.