All posts tagged "Cicadas"

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When Cortni Borgerson thinks about the trillion or so periodical cicadas emerging from underground, she sees more than clumsily flying insects flitting from tree to tree in search of a mate. She sees lunch.

Some may find that idea revolting, a belief often, if unknowingly, steeped in colonialism and the notion that eating insects is “uncivilized.” But Borgerson, an anthropologist at Montclair State University, is among those eager to change that perception. She’s a big fan of dining on bugs of all kinds, but finds cicadas particularly appetizing. “It’s one of the best American insects,” she said....

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 difficult for predators to adapt. Furthermore, the synchronized, mass emergence of the cicadas, ove......