PERIODICAL cicadas have long been renowned for their timekeeping. Now
researchers in California have found they’ve been cheating.
After developing underground for 13 or 17 years, millions of cicadas in the
US emerge from their tree root nurseries, all within a few days. How they keep
track of time so accurately has long been a mystery.
“Cicadas live underground where light and temperature remain relatively
constant year round,” says entomologist Richard Karban of the University of
California at Davis. So many biologists have assumed that the nymphs rely on
internal clocks, dead-reckoning their way through time.
Now a team led…
