A cicada in sync with its brood is a cicada with a chance. The insects’ synchronized emergence is an evolutionary strategy, scientists say. Birds, raccoons and other predators can eat only so many of them. So the more cicadas emerge together, the better the odds that more will live on to reproduce and pass along their genes. “They have the safety-in-numbers strategy,” said Chris Simon, a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Connecticut who studies the insects. The... Read this story
