Wee Kev's Blog

Well in my quest for a good nights(usually days) sleep, I've found yet another obstacle besides the usual ... work, girlfriend, sunshine and noisy neighbors.  This one is much smaller, in fact it looks so harmless, though it's about the ugliest bug you'll ever see.  The cicada looks like a really really big house fly -> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cicada.  I've only encountered them in Japan, though I guess people have to deal with them all over the world.  They spend 13 or 17 years burrowed in the ground under a tree waiting for their one shot at sex in the tree tops.  Probably similar to the mentality of a teenager, having been one a long time ago, I can understand their ability to endure so long for such a simple prize.  Even then there aren't any guarantees, so when they finally emerge,they've got to give it all they've got, so they spend a month in the trees making a god awful racket during the morning hours trying to score a mate.  If mating were so simple for people…. I doubt the cicada ever has to deal with paying for dates, anniversaries, cologne, showers, birth control or in-laws.  So while the cicadas are roaming the tree tops like a bar on a saturday night, they are fully keeping me as well as anyone who wants to sleep in, fully awake.  Unless you've heard them, you can't believe how loud they are.  Fortunately, as quickly as they come out, they die and silence is restored.  The first year I lived in Japan, I was so happy to start seeing their dead carcass’s begin to accumulate all over the sidewalks as I knew that shortly those happoshu 発泡酒 hangovers would be a little more tolerable. 
These bugs are way interesting, so they come out in durations of 13 and 17 years, which of course are prime numbers, so it makes their life-cycle incompatible with those of almost any other creature.  Namely their predators… so for example, their biggest predator is a wasp that has a 5 year peak life cycle, well, that means that once every 85 years, that predator is at it's peak period at the same time the cicada is, so for that one season, there is alot less free love and a lot more run and hide.  It also means that that inter-mating between the 13 and 17 year varieties is also extremely rare, thus keeping the two time lines consistent and fully separate over millions of years.  It also ensures that no species could ever rely on them as a constant food source as they disappear for so many years at a time, cutting down on the number of creatures that would adapt to feed on them.  None the less, they are a nuisance, and I'll be glad when there gone. 

-kev