'One in a million' blue-eyed cicadas found throughout Chicago area

Krist Schroeder was admiring cicadas at a forest preserve near Warrenville Monday afternoon when he suddenly noticed a “one-in-a-million” creature staring at him from atop a plant.

“There was the blue-eyed cicada staring right up at me,” Schroeder, a sergeant at the DuPage Forest Preserve Police Department, told the Chicago Sun-Times. “I just think it was a pretty amazing find. It was just a good feeling to find something like that.”

Schroeder, who found the insect at the St. James Farm Forest Preserve, knew his colleagues wouldn’t believe him with just pictures, so Schroeder placed the insect in a Tupperware container with sticks and small plant pieces. He took it to work with him the next day to show his colleagues at a morning roll call before releasing it back into the wild.

“They thought it was pretty neat,” Schroeder said. “A couple of them took the container from me and were looking up close. ... It’s something you don’t get to see that often and they didn’t even know there were blue-eyed cicadas.”

As two broods of cicadas emerge together for the first time in more than two centuries, a handful of folks like Schroeder in the Chicago area have been coming across the rare blue-eyed bugs, much to their excitement.

For the full story, visit chicagosuntimes.com.