Could NC’s cicada season make us see more copperheads? Here’s what wildlife experts say

Three quick things:

• Cicadas’ arrival during North Carolina summers could increase your chance of running into a copperhead, a predator of the insects. This year, the state is experiencing a 13-year brood.

• The influx of cicadas does not cause a rise in the copperhead population, only a slightly higher chance of encounters. This is particularly true around oak trees where cicadas are prevalent.

• To reduce encounters with copperheads during cicada season, you should avoid cicada hotspots and remember the snakes’ normal activity pattern (even during cicada season) is from dusk to dawn.

The long-awaited noisemakers have arrived.

The sounds of cicadas — fairly large insects with red eyes and long wings — can be white noise to North Carolina summers. The constant hissy, sometimes clicky song seems to whir on repeat as we open our windows to catch cooler air each evening, when the hot summer day comes to a close.

Copperheads, our region’s familiar venomous snake, love this song. It’s their dinner bell.

As cicadas emerge to shed their shells and chirp their summer songs, copperheads are standing by, awaiting a delicious meal. But does that mean you’re more likely to encounter the snakes now, just because of the extra cicadas?

The News & Observer chatted with Falyn Owens, wildlife biologist with the NC Wildlife Resources Commission, to learn more about snake and cicada activity this time of year — and what that means for the rest of us.

What are cicadas? What do they look like?

Cicadas are medium to large insects with long, transparent wings, which are held peaked over the body when at rest. There’s one species of them in North Carolina.

“Often, the most deafening choruses of annual cicadas are during the hottest days of the year, leading to another common name for this group: the dog-day cicadas,” Jeff Hall, snake expert with the NC Wildlife Commission, told The N&O last year.

▪ Annual “dog-day” cicadas are large, stout, dark insects with lighter markings and greenish markings on the wings. These emerge every summer. There are at least seven species of them in North Carolina.

▪ Periodical cicadas have reddish-orange eyes, and they are usually seen by the thousands. These emerge on longer cycles, either every 13 or 17 years.

Cicadas are sometimes incorrectly called “harvest flies” (but they’re not flies) or “locusts” (which are grasshoppers).

When do cicadas emerge in NC?

This year, we’re seeing (and already hearing) the summertime periodical brood. North Carolina is experiencing the 13-year periodical brood (called Brood XIX, or 19).

Nationally, two periodical broods are emerging at the same time, but they’re happening in different locations. The only spot in the country with a small overlap is in central Illinois.

In North Carolina, annual cicadas come out during the hottest days of the year, which are often in July and August.

Male cicadas sing a shrill mating call to attract females. After mating, females jab their eggs into the bark or twigs in a double row up to four or five inches long, according to NC State Extension.

Tiny pale nymphs hatch six to ten weeks later and drop to the soil. There, they burrow in for years. While in the soil, the nymphs feed on the roots of many kinds of trees.

Do more cicadas mean more copperheads?

No, there is not a higher number of snakes in the region because of the 2024 emergence. But there might be a slightly higher likelihood of encountering a copperhead, especially dusk through dawn when they are normally active.

That’s because cicadas — primarily in the nymph or larval form, although they also will eat freshly molted adults — are a common prey item for copperheads. This is especially true around oak trees, which support good populations of cicadas.

“Copperheads that live in an immediate area may spend more time at a location where a lot of cicadas are emerging — to take advantage of the easy, protein-rich food source,” Owens said.

The snakes don’t travel long distances to seek out cicadas, and they don’t suddenly become more active during the day. (Like the rest of us, they try not to exert too much energy during the hottest parts of our sweltering summer days.)

“It’s important for folks to understand they’re not going to be seeing more copperheads unless they’re actively going out at night and coming across trees with an exceptionally large number of cicadas emerging from their roots,” Owens said.

“Otherwise, there’s no increased chance of coming across a copperhead.”

How to avoid copperheads during cicada season

To steer clear of copperheads as best as you can, avoid cicada hotspots. These spots don’t really change year to year (as long as their host trees stay healthy). Many of these trees are oaks.

“Cicadas tend to be creatures of habit, at least in terms of where they are likely to emerge. Mature oak trees that have hosted numerous cicada nymphs in the past are likely to be where cicadas will emerge in large numbers again,” Owens said.

“If you’ve seen a lot of nymphs around a particular tree in the past, that’s a good place to watch out for nymphs again, and potentially copperheads — especially dusk through dawn when copperheads are actively searching for food.”

(Safely) watch copperheads, cicadas this summer

Cicadas can be pretty much anywhere there’s soil and trees, though they especially love large oaks.

“If you have large oak trees on your property and you notice large numbers of cicada nymph skins left behind from molting, you might go out in the evening just around dark or a little after and see if you get a glimpse of this fascinating interaction between copperheads and cicadas,” Hall said last year.

“Be safe about it, make sure you have a good light and watch your step as you investigate, but you might be treated to some really amazing wildlife theater!”

How to identify a copperhead snake

Adult copperheads have the following characteristics:

▪ Pattern: The hourglass-shaped patterns on their backs look like Hershey’s Kisses.

It can be tricky to rely just on markings, especially if you haven’t seen many copperheads in person or you only caught a quick glimpse of it.

“There can be a lot of variation in color and pattern with flecks and specks between the kisses,” said Talena Chavis, certified wildlife relocation expert and owner of NC Snake Catcher in Cary.

▪ Color: Copperheads are brownish-gray. They easily camouflage within dry leaves and wood debris.

Newborn or very young copperheads have the same color and pattern as adults, but their brightly tipped tails make them stand out.

“It has a light brown, coppery or tan (sometimes grayish or pinkish tan) background color, with strongly contrasting chestnut brown crossbands shaped like an hourglass or dumbbell,” the Wildlife Resources Commission says.

▪ Length: Adult copperheads can grow to about three feet long.

For a detailed look at the copperhead snake, visit newsobserver.com/news or ncwildlife.org.

The three bullet points at the top of the article were created using an AI tool for summarization and edited by journalists. Read more on our AI policy here.

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