system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
How do 17 year life cycle cicadas "keep track" of the year count to know when to emerge?
gpt
It actually has to do with the life cycle. It was believed that they were hibernating or asleep. Recent studies have found that they are actually alive, tunneling underground as a flightless juvenile stage. They emerge as adults at the same time, presumably to breed and then their offspring will take 17 years to become adults, at which the whole cycle will start again.