Cicada Mania

Dedicated to cicadas, the most amazing insects in the world.

August 9, 2009

Cicadas and bacteria

Filed under: Anatomy — Dan @ 7:43 pm

I saw quite a few articles this weekend about the discovery of bacteria that live within cicada cells that are they key to their long lives underground.

Here’s the Live Science article.

So how do cicadas gather the nutrients they need to survive, despite their low-nutrient diet? McCutcheon says that cicadas supplement their diet by maintaining complicated relationships with two species of specialized bacteria that live inside their cells. The bacteria produce essential nutrients for the cicadas that the animals neither receive from their sap diets nor produce themselves.

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