{"id":344914,"date":"2026-06-21T18:34:15","date_gmt":"2026-06-21T18:34:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/344914\/"},"modified":"2026-06-21T18:34:15","modified_gmt":"2026-06-21T18:34:15","slug":"that-loud-sound-in-texas-trees-cicadas-are-back-for-summer-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/344914\/","title":{"rendered":"That loud sound in Texas trees? Cicadas are back for summer"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you’ve lived in Texas long enough, chances are you’re all too familiar with one specific noise that means summer <\/a>is on its way. A rattling that comes from the trees and sometimes crescendos to an all-out screech, cicadas are a staple of the hotter months. But for one transplant to the state, they came as a surprise.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In a TikTok, one Texas newcomer named Amber (@my_knotty_hobby) said “I just moved to San Antonio from North Dakota … Can someone tell me what I’m hearing in\u00a0the trees.” Amber captioned the video “now that it’s getting warmer, these things have suddenly come to life outside. They start up around dusk and get louder the darker it gets. I hear them constantly when I’m out walking and it sounds like they’re all hiding in the trees. What ARE they? Birds? Insects? Tiny screaming woodland creatures?”<\/p>\n

Continuing, she said, “More importantly… Do they bite? Will they attack me? I need answers.” Well, answers are what Texans had, but not all of them were completely serious. According to commenters, anything from katydids and the chupacabra to “Texas tree rattlesnakes” is behind that noise.<\/p>\n

That’s “the sound of Texas preheating,” one commenter wrote. Another said, “That’s the warning. Now it’ll be 100 degrees till about mid january.” And the Texas Parks & Wildlife Department did confirm to MySA that the noise is, in fact, made by cicadas.\u00a0<\/p>\n

According to Texas A&M AgriLife Extension,<\/a> male cicadas make that recognizable noise by vibrating membranes on the sides of their abdomen, and it’s supposed to be attractive to female cicadas. Meanwhile, cicada season in Texas typically lasts from April to July, which is where they get their “dog day cicada” nickname from.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Cicadas are primarily active and noisy during the day, particularly when it is hot and sunny. However, the act of emerging from the ground happens at night.<\/p>\n

One commenter said their noise is “the annual alarm clock telling you it\u2019s about to be 100 degrees and 100% humidity daily.” Can’t argue with that. Temperatures already hit 100 degrees in some areas of the state as early as February, and now that the cicadas are out in San Antonio, triple digits aren’t far <\/a>in our future.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If you’ve lived in Texas long enough, chances are you’re all too familiar with one specific noise that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":344879,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[10428,820,82,84,83],"class_list":["post-344914","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-mysaoutdoors","tag-mysastaff","tag-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio-headlines","tag-san-antonio-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344914","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=344914"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344914\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/344879"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=344914"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=344914"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=344914"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}