Just a few weeks from now, much of the eastern U.S. will be swarming with billions upon billions of cicadas. But the tri-state area may be left out of this year's noisy mating ritual.

Periodical cicadas spend much of their lives in the dark, burrowing underground soon after hatching. There, they wait for 13- or 17-years before emerging to fill the treetops with their buzzing. This year, it's Brood X's turn to hit the eastern seaboard. It's the largest of more than a dozen periodical groups known to scientists. But last time the bugs emerged, in 2004, only a handful were spotted in central Long Island, and researchers are concerned Brood X may have gone locally extinct.

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