Welcome To The Club!

Welcome To The Club! was Originally Posted on April 8, 2013 by lavarock

I have written about the frog problem here in Hawaii and some readers have thought that we are wimps. The noise from just one coqui frog can be so irritating that you hope for a vacation. Now the East Coast of the United States will have a similar irritation.

In a week or two the cicada will emerge. As I remember, the noise will be deafening. Residents will pray for silence from the constant buzzing. All I can say is “welcome to the club”!

Actually, there are cicada that around more often, so why the 13 or 17 year cycle? Some scientists believe that because the cycle for this species is 17 years (a prime number) that it is able to live because of predators cycles. Many predators have a 2 or 4 or 8 year cycle and none of those add up to these numbers. Thus none of these predators cycles will often match that of the cicada.

As you may remember, a prime number is only divisible evenly by itself and 1. Thus no two numbers can divide a prime number such as 6 is divisible by 2 and 3. Common prime numbers are 13 and 17.

Prime numbers occur in nature and are not always obvious. Take the starfish having 5 points. We cannot guarantee that this is a prime example, because it may be just that starfish HAVE 5 points. But the cicada is definitely a prime example of a prime number in nature.