[2] There are historical records of the cicada in Bexar County, Texas starting in 1934, but this population died out - possibly due to the extended drought of the 1950s.

[5] In the United States, the giant cicada primarily resides in the South Texas brushland, in an area spanning approximately from Laughlin Air Force Base (near Del Rio, Texas) in the west through Uvalde, San Antonio and Austin in the east, ranging nearly to the western limits of Houston.

Further south, its range includes most of the southern half of Texas before entering into Mexico, where it is primarily found from Coahuila, along the Mexican Gulf coast states, through to the Yucatán Peninsula.

South of Mexico, the giant cicada is found across much of Belize, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Brazil, Colombia,[7] Ecuador, Venezuela, the Guianas, Trinidad and Tobago, Bolivia, Peru, Paraguay and Uruguay.

[8] Giant cicadas produce a remarkably distinct and loud sound, singing primarily at dusk, and less often at dawn in central Texas.