Sentences with phrase «cycle cicadas»

Birds dining on the 13 - year - cycle cicadas followed a similar, if slightly more complicated path.

Within each of those groups, species on a 13 - year schedule diverged from 17 - year - cycle cicadas about 200,000 to 100,000 years ago, the researchers from the United States and Japan report.

Not exact matches

And a quick learner, my older toddler can explain evaporation, how geysers work, and the life cycle of cicadas.

«An extreme climatic stimulus might cue large numbers of cicadas to shift, perhaps even enough to satiate predators,» Cooley and colleagues wrote in a 2003 essay on climate shifts and periodical cicada life cycles.

As the planet warms — and as that warming accelerates due to man - made climate change — «the cicada may yet reprise its role as climate indicator if its cycle is disrupted by a warming planet,» Wildlife Conservation Society entomologist Craig Gibbs wrote in an op - ed last week in The New York Times.

The curious phenomenon of the cicada's periodical life cycle is the subject of much debate among scientists, who are limited to no small extent by the infrequency of the insect's visits to the surface.

Now Koenig and his colleagues suggest the lengths of the cycles may somehow cause the numbers of cicadas» predators — insectivorous birds — to drop.

«Our hypothesis is, frankly, hard to believe, even by us, if for no other reason because we know of no mechanism to explain how cicada emergences could be driving a cycle in the birds that is so long — 13 or 17 years,» Koenig says.

Others have suggested these cycles may help periodical cicadas avoid predators or parasites that have shorter, even - numbered life cycles, but no strong evidence exists in support of these ideas either.

Bird population crashes seem to correlate with the strange 13 - year and 17 - year cycles of periodical cicadas.

So how do the cicadas manage to manipulate the birds over these long cycles?

Knowing that researchers in the early 20th century had shown that avian predators can wipe out an entire population of cicadas that emerges out of sequence, Koenig decided to take a look at how bird populations might affect the insects» cycles.

Scientists have puzzled over the cicadas» cycles since colonists first reported the insects» strange behaviors in the mid-1600s.

Luckily for him, he encounters a hostage situation at an Old West themed attraction, a baby that was born with a third leg, a hurricane approaching Texas during the state's tornado season and the cicada cycle (I wish I were kidding), and, when he asks for some real tragedy, the movie cuts to a group of deaf children approaching a carnival.

The 17 - year cycle of the cicada resembles her creative approach.