Prime Numbers Are The Secret To The Cicada's Success

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“Periodical cicadas have the longest life cycles known for insects. They are called ‘periodical’ because in any one population all but a trivially small fraction are exactly the same age. The nymphs suck juices from the roots of forest trees and finally emerge from the ground, become adults, mate, lay their eggs, and die, all within the same few weeks of every 17^th (or in the South, every 13^th) year. Not one species does this, but three, and they always do it together.” —Monte Lloyd and Henry S. Dybas, 1966

There is safety in numbers or, at least, there is survival in numbers. That is the maxim that periodical cicadas live by.

Periodical cicadas — insects of the genus Magicicada — are remarkable creatures. They develop extremely slowly, underground, before surfacing en masse at either 13- or 17-year intervals, when the ground temperature reaches 64 degrees Fahrenheit. As described in the epigraph above, they quickly mate, lay eggs and die, disappearing from view until their offspring crawl out of the ground more than a dozen years later.