Month: July 2005

Categories
Anatomy Audio, Sounds, Songs

Do cicadas sing at night?

A few people have asked me if cicadas sing at night. The truth is, in most cases, they do not. Most of the time when you hear an insect at night it is a cricket or katydid. However, there are a few cases when cicadas will sing at night:

  • In the presence of artificial light sources, like streetlights & floodlights, or a full moon. I turned on a flood light tonight to test this and it worked: a cicada started to sing.
  • When it’s extraordinarily hot.
  • If the cicada is disturbed or attacked.
  • If they’re overcrowded

Thanks to John Cooley for most of this information.

Categories
Magicicada Periodical

Emergence of Prime Numbers as the Result of Evolutionary Strategy

Professor Douglas Galvao of the State University of Campinas has written a paper titled Emergence of Prime Numbers as the Result of Evolutionary Strategy. He is hoping to get feedback from the scientific / cicada community.

We investigate by means of a simple theoretical model the emergence of prime numbers as life cycles, as those seen for some species of cicadas.

You can download a PDF version of the paper. Windows users will need Adobe Acrobat Reader to view it, and Mac users can simply use Preview.

You can contact Prof. Douglas Galvao, as well:

Prof. D.S. Galvao
Head of Applied Physics Department
State University of Campinas
Campinas – Sao Paulo – BRAZIL

Categories
Anatomy Massospora Matt Berger Neotibicen

Tibicen fungi blues

Tibicen fungi.

Here’s a nice photo of a Neotibicen cicada infected with Massospora fungi. Yuck! Thanks to Matt for the photo.

Categories
Eating Cicadas

Cicada Pie Recipe

These sort of things disgust me, but I’m posting it anyway.

Four cups of chopped rhubarb, 1 cup of fresh cicadas, washed and any hard parts removed; 1&1/3 cups white sugar, 6 tablespoons all-purpose flour, 1tablespoon butter, and a 9-inch double crust pie crust.

You’ll find the rest of the recipe in this article from the Arizona Republic: Answering bug query is easy as pie.

Categories
Neotibicen Roy Troutman

Summer Time cicadas

Cicada photo by Roy Troutman

More Tibicen photos from Roy Troutman.

Categories
Magicicada Matt Berger Periodical Stragglers

Straggler pictures from Matt

Matt Berger ent us some straggler pictures taken earlier this year:

Matt 2005 Straggler.

Matt 2005 Straggler.