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An Asian lady beetle, with a telltale M-shaped marking on its head. The non-native beetles are also found in a range of shades from yellow to orange to red, with more spots than native ladybugs. (DE1967 / iStock)

Just when you thought it was safe to go outside, here come the ladybug swarms.

To ID an adult invasive brown marmorated stink bug, look for alternating black and white bands on its antennae and legs and alternating black and white triangular markings on their abdomen. (Backyard Production / i Stock)

Stink bugs — officially, brown marmorated stink bugs — aren’t fans of the cooler fall temperatures and have started heading indoors to over-winter. Don’t freak out, experts said.

A monarch butterfly on a flower. (Pixabay)

The planting of a non-native milkweed and the practice of captive-rearing monarch caterpillars have been identified as two possible sources of monarchs failure to survive their fall migration.  

A male green darner dragonfly with his signature bright blue abdomen. (emprised / iStock)

Dragonflies are on the move, turning up in swarms during feeding frenzies as they begin migrating south for the winter. “It’s the most exciting time of the year if you love dragonflies,” said Cindy Crosby, a dragonfly monitor.

Batavia’s Chris Hodge, a high school art teacher, earned Best in Show for “Dawn of the Cicada.” (Chris Hodge)
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Prepare to get all nostalgic for the extremely recent past.

Common milkweed. (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service / Flickr Creative Commons)

After analyzing data from a community science project on urban milkweed patches, Field Museum researchers have identified common milkweed as the species most attractive to monarch butterflies. 

The shed exoskeleton of an annual, “dog day” cicada seen in Chicago’s Lincoln Square neighborhood on July 9, 2024. (Patty Wetli / WTTW News)

From emergence holes in the parkway to molted shells on trees to ear-splitting mating calls, cicadas have very much arrived in Chicago. Just not the ones everybody was obsessing over a month ago.

A tawny frogmouth at Brookfield Zoo made the wise choice to play with but not eat a periodical cicada. The insects have been linked to disease in some birds. (Jim Schulz / Brookfield Zoo Chicago)

All signs point to a cicada-induced vitamin deficiency as the cause of a mystery disease that affected some birds during a 2021 emergence and now again in 2024.

A cicada’s lifespan is short, from alive and thriving to dead and rotting in a matter of weeks. (Patty Wetli / WTTW News)

Members of the first wave of cicadas have done their thing: They came, they molted, they screamed, they bred, and now they’re dying.

The Field Museum’s Maureen Turcatel and Jim Louderman examine a cicada specimen to add to the Field’s insect collection, May 30, 2024. (Patty Wetli / WTTW News)

The Field Museum has more than 10 million specimens in its insect collection and — believe it or not — not a single 13-year periodical cicada among them. So what better time than now to fill that gap?

Brood XIX periodical cicada. (Alabama Extension / Flickr Creative Commons)

If you wouldn’t eat a vegetable grown in that soil, don’t eat a cicada.

Cicada sculptures, this one in Winnemac Park on the North Side, are as close as many Chicagoans are going to get to the real thing. (Patty Wetli / WTTW News)

Some of the early “They’re here!” excitement has definitely given way to “Wait, they’re staying for how long?” At the opposite end of the spectrum, Chicagoans are wondering why they got left out of the great 2024 emergence.

Somewhere in the bubble bath is a spittlebug nymph, which farts out foam as a protective cocoon. (Patty Wetli / WTTW News)

The tiny critters are almost impossible to spot, but you can’t miss their bubbles.

A graphic that says "The Return of the Cicadas." (WTTW News)

In case you haven’t heard, the cicadas are coming, and things are about to get loud. WTTW News explains.

Brood XIII periodical cicada, photographed May 19, 2024, in Illinois. (Patty Wetli / WTTW News)

Periodical cicadas use trees’ lifecycles to “count” years. But when trees get duped by climate change, so do the insects. Could it lead to new broods?

A cicada specimen. (USGS Bee Inventory and Monitoring Lab)
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The Illinois Department of Natural Resources has announced its plan to host a cicada-themed art show during the Illinois State Fair and is seeking entries from the public, looking for interpretations of cicadas or broods.