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ambience: cicadas
Every 17 years, countless numbers of flying insects called cicadas suddenly appear throughout the United States. The question is, where did they come from? I’m Jim Metzner and this is the Pulse of the Planet.
“A brood is a unique emergence of cicadas, in a well-defined geographic area, that happens once every 17 years. So, for example, Brood 10 will emerge everywhere from Northern New Jersey to Georgia and west of the Mississippi.”
Dr. Mike Raupp is professor of Entomology at the University of Maryland. This year, he and other cicada lovers across the country were treated to the emergence of Brood 10, the largest group of cicadas on the planet. But where have these insects spent the last 17 years?
“The brood develops more or less simultaneously underground. The critical thing for cicadas, and the way they work their magic, is to emerge simultaneously in incredible numbers at precisely the right time each 17 years. This is part of their evolutionary strategy for survival.”
“The adult cicada, of course, has wings and does the adult behaviors of singing, mating and laying eggs. The immature stage of the cicada is called the nymph. These are small insects that feed underground. They have sucking mouthparts much like the adults do, and they attach to the roots of trees, or perhaps shrubs and maybe even grasses underground and feed on plant sap for almost seventeen years underground.”
We’ll hear more about cicadas in future programs. Pulse of the Planet is presented by the National Science Foundation. I’m Jim Metzner.
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