Cicada Mania

Cicadas are cool, and tattoos can be pretty cool too. Take a took at Sandy Herder’s new cicada tattoo. Awesome.

Phoebe is back with cool photos and video of an Okangana bella cicada!

Video of a Okangana bella:

Mr. Agus and Mr. Arga need your help identifying at least one of these cicadas.

The photo taken from Rejang land, its located at south west Sumatra, Sumatra island, Indonesia, with 600-700 above level sea.

Well, I found the pages the images came from. Looks like just the Green one (A) needs an ID.

Cicada A. Still unknown.

Cicada B. Tosena Depicta.

Cicada C. Huechys Sanguinea.

Please excuse our appearance…

…while we make some changes to the site.

I’ve been making subtle changes to the site lately mostly moving links to the cicada links page, rebuilding the navigation (at the top of the page), link checking, rebuilding the video page (now if Revver will cooperate), deleting orphaned files, creating a page just for cicada audio — subtle changes that I hope will make the site easier to use, better organized and less cluttered looking.

Over the next month or so, when not working, swimming, eating watermelon or watching cable, I’ll continue to refine the changes I’ve made.

Changes to come:

In the past I’ve focused on the speed of getting information and photos up on the web, while sacrificing good scientific information — while I don’t see that changing, I am going to spend some time labeling the cicada photos on the site with more substantial information, like actual species names (not just genus or “this is a cicada”). By no means do I expect to venture into the level of detail of my friends in the scientific community, but I do hope to improve the quality of the site.

I’m also investigating better management of the cicada photos on the site. Again, I’ve often sacrificed organization and labeling for speed of publication.

I just finished watching the BBC mini-series Life in the Undergrowth staring several million invertebrates and David Attenborough. (I watched it in between the picnics, fireworks, and swimming that mostly occupies my time.) Fans of cicadas and land-dwelling invertebrates will love this show. Attenborough is the best when it comes to explaining the natural world to TV viewers.

BBC thoughtfully put the segment of the show about 17 year cicadas on YouTube.

I like the bit when he lures the male around by imitating the wing flicks of females.

You can buy it in the usual places, or rent it of course.

The Tibicen is the genus of annual cicada most people are familiar with.

Here are some general details about Tibicen:

• They emerge every summer. They do not emerge in broods.
• They emerge in small numbers (small relative to periodical cicadas).
• They are timid and elusive compared to periodical cicadas.
• Most are physically larger than periodical cicadas.
• They are well camouflaged: their colors and patterns of colors help to hide them in their surroundings. They look like little military vehicles, IMHO.
• Colloquial names for Tibicens: August Dry Birds, Dog Day cicadas, Harvest Flies, Jar Flies, Bush Cicada (Tibicen dorsatus, formerly T. dorsata)

Some cool Tibicen posts and pages you should check out:

• Cicada researcher Kathy Hill’s photo of 18 different Tibicen species.
• It is possible to identify Tibicen just after they have molted: a visual tool to identify freshly molted Tibicens by Paul Krombholz
• Tibicen anatomy page (offsite link).
• Macro videos of a Tibicen by Roy Troutman
• My Tibicen photos, including Marvin, the CicadaMania mascot.
• All Tibicen posts on this website.
• All Tibicen galleries.

An image from Roy Troutman:

My Tibicen video from 1996

Tibicen tibicen (T. chloromerus, T. chloromera)