The periodic cicadas of Brood XIV are emerging with their buzzing, clicking mating songs in parts of 13 states from Georgia northward through Pennsylvania.

Entomologist Frank Hale in Nashville says the 17-year wait is all about love, noting the whole idea in nature is to reproduce.

In State College, Pennsylvania, entomologist Greg Hoover urges people to listen carefully and they'll hear distinctive mating calls of three species in the emergence. One sounds like saying the word "pharaoh" and extending it, another sounds like a series of ticks and buzzes and a third resembles the sound of a water sprinkler.

The adults die after about three weeks and six weeks later, nymphs hatch out in the trees, burrow into the ground and feed on tree roots for the next 17 years.