The eastern part of the US is bracing for hundreds of millions of visitors this spring – the Brood II cicadas, which emerge from underground only every 17 years. The “coming frenzy of sex and death,” as the Washington Post put it, is the largest since Brood X emerged in the summer of 2004. That year, many artists from the area used the cicadas’ discarded carapaces, which lay on the ground in thousands all over the region, in their artwork.  So I went to look for cicada-based art, and found a few interesting things.

Carrianne Bullard made this ethereal teacup, saucer and spoon (top) out of cicada wings.

Tim Tate filled a glass vessel with cicada carapaces and condoms as a statement about overpopulation.

Matthew Curtis created a series of glass sculptures called carapaces, which he says are based both on the structures of the natural world and modernist architecture.

And the Anderson Design Group has come up with a fantastic graphic for this year’s “invasion” which really lays out the basics of the cicada experience: Sing. Mate. Die.