Scientist awaits cicadas' noisy return

Cicadas, the noisy arthropods, are expected to return to eastern Cincinnati this May, a biologist said.

The Cincinnati Enquirer reported Friday that the same bugs appeared in large numbers in eastern Hamilton, Butler and Clermont counties in Ohio in 1991.

Gene Kritsky, a professor of biology at the College of Mount St. Joseph, said this year most of the bugs are expected to appear in the area east of Interstate 71.

Additionally, the bugs are expected in south central Ohio, over the eastern half of Kentucky and parts of Tennessee, Indiana, Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, North Carolina, New York, Massachusetts and New Jersey, the newspaper said.

In Greater Cincinnati, he says, the cicadas are expected to emerge in the area mostly east of I-71, said Kritsky, who has been studying cicadas for 34 years.

He and his this year will be collecting data for a long-term study of the cicadas in Cincinnati.

"The cicadas are slowly revealing their secrets," he was quoted as saying.

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