Via Shutterstock

Via Shutterstock

Ready or not, the cicadas are starting to emerge.

Members of Brood II, which have been underground since their last appearance in 1996, were recently spotted in Northern Virginia. The ground temperature must be at least 64 degrees consistently for the insects to appear.

As reported by the Washington Post, cicadas have been found—and, in one case, eaten by a rescue dachshund—along Fort Belvoir’s Beaver Pond Trail and in Springfield, Va.:

Let the record reflect that one of the first ugly bugs of this year’s promised cicada invasion was immediately eaten by a small dog in Springfield.

“She will eat anything and every­thing,” said Rita’s owner, Mary Wright Baylor, “and cicadas seem to be her new favorite. She’s out in the yard looking for more of them right now.”

Jack Dobbyn, an early cicada spotter featured in the Post, tweeted a photo of one crunching on a leaf. (Here’s audio of a cicada, if you’d like to get the full experience.)

After a rather temperate spring, D.C. will once again be swallowed by hot temperatures that will soon become unbearable. That means higher, cicada-friendly ground temperatures, which WNYC has been tracking with a handy, dandy map.

In case you were worried, yes, there’s already a D.C.-centric, not-so-funny cicada Twitter account named Barack H. Cicada. Like parody Twitter accounts, Brood II cicadas are just annoying, not physically harmful.

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