This is a photo of the amazing Bagpipe cicada (Lembeja paradoxa) was taken by Timothy Emery (David Emery’s son).
Attached is a photo taken by my son, Timothy Emery from Thursday Island, Torres Strait off Cape York, Queensland. This a male “bagpipe cicada” (Lembeja paradoxa) singing for his female. These guys at rest look like dead leaves with wings folded under stems of grass, but when singing at dusk, rush up the stems and can expand their abdomens incredibly up to 5-10 x resting size (hence the bagpipe bit) and emit a very loud droning sound for their size. A great emergence of these on Thursday Island in the first 2 weeks of January.
Here is a larger version.
Cicadas: it’s what’s for dinner!
David Marshall and Kathy Hill have discovered that a particular species of katydid mimics the wing-flick of female cicadas to lure male cicadas to their certain doom.
We have found that predatory Chlorobalius leucoviridis katydids (Orthoptera: Tettigoniidae) can attract male cicadas (Hemiptera: Cicadidae) by imitating the species-specific wing-flick replies of sexually receptive female cicadas. This aggressive mimicry is accomplished both acoustically, with tegminal clicks, and visually, with synchronized body jerks. Remarkably, the katydids respond effectively to a variety of complex, species-specific Cicadettini songs, including songs of many cicada species that the predator has never encountered.
Read the entire research article: Versatile Aggressive Mimicry of Cicadas by an Australian Predatory Katydid.
Various cicada pins, lures and other items I’ve collected over the years.
