Are they alive? An egg? Worm?
In: Biology
They are alive. The baby cicadas, called nymphs in the study of insects (entomology) burrow into the ground and find tree roots of the specific kind of trees they eat. They spend many years underground sucking sap out of these tree roots. Tree root sap doesn’t contain a whole lot of energy, so it takes them a really long time to grow to adulthood. Plus, cicadas have specifically evolved so that tens of millions of them emerge all at once. There are so many cicadas that come out of the ground at one time, that even all the animals that eat cicadas can’t possibly eat all of them. And because cicadas only emerge every seven or 13 or 17 or whatever years, the predator population can’t possibly just grow in anticipation of there being cicadas. What do they eat before and after the cicadas are all gone?
If you are in the right place and you find the right trees, you could even dig up the cicada nymphs if you want to. I don’t know why you would, but it would certainly prove to you that they are alive down there and sucking tree sap.
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