Periodical Cicadas
Missouri’s periodical cicadas are not an annual attraction: the forest-wide chorus arrives only when a mapped 13- or 17-year brood emerges.
Artwork inspired by George Caleb Bingham
Periodical cicadas are black-bodied insects with bright red eyes, orange-veined clear wings, and synchronized spring emergence. Nymphs spend 13 or 17 years underground feeding from tree roots before surfacing when soil about eight inches deep warms to roughly 64°F, often after warm rain. Empty shells, emergence holes, mating choruses, and branch-tip egg-laying all belong to the same brief event.
Missouri’s most recent major emergence was Brood XIX in 2024. The next mapped Missouri events are 13-year Brood XXIII in 2028, 17-year Brood III in 2031, and 17-year Brood IV in 2032; scattered stragglers can appear off-cycle, but they do not create a predictable statewide spectacle. Later-summer green dog-day cicadas are annual species, not a failed periodical brood.
- Emergence pattern
- No scheduled major Missouri brood emergence
- Next Missouri broods
- XXIII in 2028; III in 2031; IV in 2032
- Annual look-alike
- Larger green dog-day cicadas appear later in summer
Quick guide
- Choose the brood before the destination
- 2028: central and southeast; 2031: far north; 2032: western Missouri
- Follow one emergence sequence
- ½-inch hole or mud chimney → shed shell → red-eyed adult → chorus → egg-slit twig
Use Missouri’s brood geography to distinguish a mass emergence from a straggler
- Check year and Missouri region first
- Use the Missouri Department of Conservation brood map before travel.
- Watch the ground threshold
- During the correct brood year, look beneath mature deciduous trees after warm rain.
- Trace the life stage sequence
- Follow a brown wingless nymph from soil to trunk, then find the split shell and newly expanded adult.
- Separate brood, straggler, and annual cicada
- Confirm black body, bright red eyes, orange wing veins, spring timing, and synchronized numbers.
Good to know
A Missouri periodical-cicada record has three separate coordinates: place, brood, and year. One red-eyed straggler can be biologically genuine without predicting the forest-wide chorus associated with Brood XXIII, III, or IV.
Notice these
- Bright red eyes
- Black body and orange wing veins
- Mass synchronized spring emergence
- County-specific 13- or 17-year brood clock