Periodical cicadas spend 99.5% of their life underground. Most of them live in large broods that go underground for cycles of 17 or 13 years — though some have different timings. During these periods, they live as nymphs that feed on fluids from the roots of trees. When the time is right, the individuals in a brood emerge, all at once, and live overground for only a few weeks. Cicadas likely developed this evolutionary strategy to avoid predators. Using prime numbers for their emergence makes it... Read this story
