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Josh Pulliam and other researchers from Jake Socha s lab at Virginia Tech drove from Blacksburg, Va., to the northern part of the state and spent days collecting and studying Brood X cicadas.
Millions upon millions of Brood X cicadas are emerging, and entomologist Marianne Alleyne didn t want to miss it. I didn t see it 17 years ago, and I wanted to experience it, says Alleyne. My brother-in-law actually put it perfectly: This is your entomology Woodstock, isn t it?
Brood X isn t the only group of cicadas that spends nearly two decades underground, but it is the biggest and most famous. The return of these enormous black bugs only lasts about six weeks and is a rare chance for researchers to try to understand everything from the creature s basic biological design to the impact of its mass appearance on other living creatures.
A cicada (Jin Kemoole/Flickr)
It s been 17 years since we last heard the sound of the Brood X cicada. Any day now, trillions of them will emerge out of the ground in parts of the eastern and Midwestern United States. It s a wonder of nature that we get to witness once every 17 years.
Now, cicadas and Brood X have been an inspiration to researchers well beyond the world of entomology. Below, we ve got three stories on the remarkable things humankind has learned from these insects. Cicada-Licious
MEGHNA CHAKRABARTI: The last time Brood X emerged was in 2004. And Jenna Jadin was a PhD student in evolutionary biology and ecology at the University of Maryland at the time. A well-known cicada expert, Mike Raupp, a professor at the University of Maryland, he had been inundated with press calls about the cicada emergence.
Date Time
Elastic motion makes click beetles click, study finds
Illinois researchers Aimy Wissa, Marianne Alleyne and Ophelia Bolmin studied the motion of a click beetle’s jump and present the first analytical framework to uncover the physics behind ultrafast motion by small animals.
Photo by L. Brian Stauffer
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. Click beetles can propel themselves more than 20 body lengths into the air, and they do so without using their legs. While the jump’s motion has been studied in depth, the physical mechanisms that enable the beetles’ signature clicking maneuver have not. A new study examines the forces behind this super-fast energy release and provides guidelines for studying extreme motion, energy storage and energy release in other small animals like trap-jaw ants and mantis shrimps.
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IMAGE: Illinois researchers Aimy Wissa, Marianne Alleyne and Ophelia Bolmin studied the motion of a click beetle s jump and present the first analytical framework to uncover the physics behind ultrafast motion. view more
Credit: Photo by L. Brian Stauffer
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. Click beetles can propel themselves more than 20 body lengths into the air, and they do so without using their legs. While the jump s motion has been studied in depth, the physical mechanisms that enable the beetles signature clicking maneuver have not. A new study examines the forces behind this super-fast energy release and provides guidelines for studying extreme motion, energy storage and energy release in other small animals like trap-jaw ants and mantis shrimps.