For those of you unfamiliar with their unique life cycle, cicadas start life as an egg in the bark of a tree. Eventually, the eggs/pupa fall to the ground and burrow themselves over a foot deep in the soil. In the pupa stage, they dig around and eat the roots of trees.
After 17 years underground (though I think this number depends on the exact species of cicada), they all decide to pop out of the ground at the same time, sprout their adult exoskeletons, mate, plant eggs into tree bark, and then promptly die.
On top of all this, as an adult, their only defensive mechanism is the insane quantity of bugs emerging from the ground. Birds simply eat them until they are full, but there are way to many cicadas to eat them all. What an inefficient defense mechanism!
Speaking of defense mechanisms, in grade school, I distinctly remember learning that one species of butterfly didn’t get eaten by birds, simply because it tasted bad. I raised my hand and told my teacher that was stupid. She replied that it worked for the butterfly, and that’s all that mattered.
Being unsatisfied with that response, I remember returning to the lesson disgruntled. Clearly, this was the worst defense mechanism in the animal kingdom.
And then the very next sentence described a butterfly who’s only defense mechanism was that it LOOKED like the butterfly that tasted bad. We had a new winner for the worst defense mechanism on the planet contest. This time, I did not inform my teacher about the absurdity of the concept.
But then that night, I couldn’t sleep, because I realized that these guys weren’t at the bottom of the ladder, there were at the stinkin’ top!! Think about it!!
Any adult will tell you, growing up sucks. We all want to grow down and be kids again. The only benefit to being an adult is that you get to engage in the act of sex. Well guess what, these little bugs understand that better than us humans!
They spend the overwhelming majority of their life chilling underground as pupas, eating tree roots. Then, for a few brief moments, they emerge from the ground, and as their only act of adulthood, they proceed to engage in an unstoppable orgy, the size of which must be unrivaled by anything on the face of the planet.
Having experienced the pinnacle of existence, they lay their eggs, and die.
Now I know that humans have achieved a lot, and we’ve harnessed fire and put a man on the moon and all that jazz, but I can’t help but be envious of these little bugs. They spend 17 years as kids, have sex, and then have the good sense to die. You can’t help appreciate the simplicity.
So, next time you see some nature show with cicadas, realize that you aren’t just looking at some ordinary bugs, but you are looking at the most evolutionarily gifted species on the planet, and possibly the universe. Godspeed Mr. Cicada. Godspeed.
Circa March 6, 2010