Cicadian Rhythms

[Gokul43201]

Know why the cicada have 13 and 17 year life cycles ? Is there a reason why evolution picked prime numbers for their life-cycles ?

Check out this neat article in the Post :
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61426-2004May2.html

[Jikx]

If it was purely random.. then its a 25% chance that it would be odd numbers anyway.

Kind of reminds me of a questions someone asked back at school, that being "why are electrons negitively charged, and not positive"? Answer "because if they were positively charged, we would be asking why they were not negatively charged".

[Gokul43201]

If it was purely random.. then its a 25% chance that it would be odd numbers anyway.

Kind of reminds me of a questions someone asked back at school, that being "why are electrons negitively charged, and not positive"? Answer "because if they were positively charged, we would be asking why they were not negatively charged".

Actually, it's not ! And all odd numbers are not prime. In particular, the magicicada lifespan avoids 15 for a very specific reason. If you had read the article you would know why...