How do cicadas know what season it is?
CrowdScience
BBC
4.8 • 985 Ratings
🗓️ 9 January 2026
⏱️ 27 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Crowdscience listener Ryosuke grew up in Japan, and spent his childhood summers catching cicadas in the park. For people in Japan, the sound of their chirping signals the first true summer day. But until they emerge, these enigmatic insects live underground - often for many years. Ryosuke wants to know how they know the time is right, and CrowdScience is on the case.
Presenter Anand Jagatia pieces together the story of the species, and meets the small but dedicated group of academics worldwide who’ve been able to study them.
In a field near Girona, Spain, he meets a scientist who’s spent the last twenty years counting them. How will a temperature probe help us work out when they might emerge, and what are they doing underground for so many years anyway?
In nearby Barcelona, another scientist cuts open the stem of a tomato plant and Anand watches as the sap flows out. Could this be a clue to how cicadas sense what’s going on above ground?
And he meets a cicada breeder in the US who has discovered a link between the life cycle of cicadas and the fruiting of a peach tree. Armed with that knowledge, can you really make time move faster for tree and insect alike?
Presenter: Anand Jagatia
Producer: Robbie Wojciechowski
Editor: Ben Motley
(Photo:Cicada on Hosta Leaf - stock photo Credit: KenWiedemann via Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio Podcasts. |
| 0:05.7 | Hello, you're about to listen to a BBC podcast, and I'm Ed Gamble, host of another BBC podcast, The Traitors Uncloaked. |
| 0:12.7 | But my show is available only on BBC Sounds, just like Ellis and John's Saturday bonus episodes, |
| 0:18.2 | The Pop Top Ten podcast with Scott Mills and Rylan, and comedy specials |
| 0:22.2 | from the likes of Harriet Kemsley, Susie Ruffle and Rommashranganathan. However, and maybe I'm |
| 0:27.3 | biased, it's really all about the traitors uncoaked. So for a whole bunch of exclusive scoops |
| 0:32.3 | and podcasts, listen only on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:40.9 | Hello and welcome to crowd science from the BBC World Service. |
| 0:46.2 | I'm Anne Jagatia and to get us started this week, I want to take you back to the middle of summer 2025. |
| 0:48.0 | It is a lovely warm day, just a little bit of moisture in the air, nice and humid, very pleasant day. |
| 0:56.3 | Where I am in the UK, people are enjoying the sunshine. |
| 1:00.1 | Planned a big family barbecue, loads of us around at my house and had all the food prepared, ready to go out and start cooking. |
| 1:09.2 | But unbeknownst to many of them, a swarm is about to emerge. |
| 1:14.0 | What I didn't know that day is that the weather was going to be all about the ants. |
| 1:20.7 | Nice flying ant situation happening in our garden right now. |
| 1:25.3 | This appears to be the epicenter. |
| 1:28.0 | It was flying Ant Day, |
| 1:29.3 | so that was a nice surprise. |
| 1:31.7 | Yep, it's Flying Ant Day, |
| 1:34.1 | which is when thousands upon thousands |
| 1:36.4 | of winged ants emerge from their nests |
| 1:38.9 | as part of a huge mating ritual. |
... |
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