Does the old chestnut of the warmer it is the louder they are hold any truth.
Sadly I’m cicada free it seems. I would have love to see how the cats would react.
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During the night, it sounds much more alien–almost like throbbing howls.
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We have 13 year cicadas here, last time in 2019, and the cats went nuts. Bert & Ernie were kittens and Iris would bring them inside for the babies to destroy. They’re loud. Even louder in the house when trying to sleep.
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During the day, it starts off as a steady chirping, but now it’s rhythmic, pulsing.
During the night, it sounds like alarms going off, then a pause, then another.
If they are screaming in terror, then why aren’t they ever cut off? Maybe they’re just screaming in pain, like the rest of us.
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Actually I’ve been told that they quiet down at sundown, which corresponds to what I hear. I think there are other bugs (crickets?) that make their own noise. Maybe they are the high pitched sounds? The cicadas are definitely the low-pitched proton beam noise, because that’s new. I can hear both sounds at the same time during the day.
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I thought it was a mating call?
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Yep. They wait underground 17 years to have sex, then die in days. Or more likely, get eaten first.
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Packed with protein!
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Despite all that time underground, I suspect cicadas don’t read Lovecraft.
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About 8 years ago, when we were living down south for a few months, my wife and daughter kept complaining about how in the neighborhood across the street (which was under construction), they were always testing the fire alarms, over and over. I hadn’t heard any alarms, so I was genuinely curious.
So one evening they dragged me outside and said “don’t you hear that?” Well yeah, but that’s not fire alarms, that’s just the bugs. Kinda blew their minds and they were terrified after that. I guess you either grow up with the music of southern bugs or you don’t and if you don’t, it’s weird and scary.
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New scale analyses reveal centenarian African coelacanths
The extant coelacanth was discovered in 1938; its biology and ecology remain poorly known due to the low number of specimens collected. Only two previous studies
have attempted to determine its age and growth. They suggested a maximum lifespan of 20 years, placing the coelacanth among the fastest growing marine fish. These findings are at odds with the coelacanth’s other known biological features including low oxygen-extraction capacity, slow metabolism, ovoviviparity, and low fecundity, typical of fish with slow life histories and slow growth. In this study, we use polarized light microscopy to study growth on scales based on a large sample of 27 specimens. Our results demonstrate for the first time nearly imperceptible annual calcified structures (circuli) on the scales and show that maximal age of the coelacanth was underestimated by a factor of 5. Our validation method suggests that circuli are indeed annual, thus supporting that the coelacanth is among the longest-living fish species, its lifespan being probably around 100 years. Like deep-sea sharks with a reduced metabolism, the coelacanth has among the slowest growth for its size. Further reappraisals of age at first sexual maturity (in the range 40 to 69 years old) and gestation duration (of around 5 years) show that the living coelacanth has one of the slowest life histories of all marine fish and possibly the longest gestation. As long-lived species with slow life histories are extremely vulnerable to natural and anthropogenic perturbations, our results suggest that coelacanths may be more threatened than previously considered.
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I’m putting this here not as a scientific paper but as a subject that needs study. And some answers on a society level. (Oh, wait, that’s socialism.)
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People want what they want when they want it - two seconds ago?
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