![]() ![]() Basically, birds and other predators can scarf down as many cicadas as they want, and it really won't matter there are so many that the insects will still be able to reproduce in huge numbers.Ī long recurrence interval may also stymy predators. It's a strategy called predator satiation. The overwhelming number of cicadas emerging at once is protective. As a child in Iowa, Ballenger once saw a deer covered in cicadas simply because the insects were everywhere and not particularly picky about where they perched. The result is spectacular: molted carapaces stuck to everything, screeching calls filling the air, clumsily flying bugs running directly into innocent passersby. When the soil warms to 64 degrees Fahrenheit (17.8 degrees Celsius), the cicadas burrow out of the earth, molt and then careen around, looking for mates. Somehow - and no one knows how - the fastest developers know to wait, and the slowest catch up.Īt year 17, things get exciting. ![]() By year 16, though, all of the cicada nymphs would be at the same stage. If a person were to dig for cicada nymphs a decade after the brood went underground, they'd find nymphs of various sizes and different stages of development. There, they feed on tree sap "until basically they're old enough to drive."īizarrely, the broodlings develop underground at different rates, Ballenger told Live Science. The young hatch, then "kind of commando down and burrow down to the roots," said Joe Ballenger, an entomologist and doctoral student at the University of Wyoming. The periodical cicada life cycle starts in the trees. Members of this brood inhabit the District of Columbia and 15 states: Delaware, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia. Brood X, also known as the "Great Eastern Brood," last emerged in 2004. The brood set to emerge this year, though, is a biggie.
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