Dedicated to cicadas, the most amazing insects in the world.
Here’s a Tibicen auletes found in Winston-Salem, North Carolina by my friend Erin Dickinson. The T. auletes is also known as Northern Dusk Singing cicada. It can be found in most Southern states, IL, IN, MI, OH, MD, DE, NJ and CT.
The Tibicen auletes is the largest species of the Tibicen cicadas (largest in terms of physical size). Visit Insect Singers to hear its song.
Roy Troutman sent us these amazing photos of a female Walker’s Cicada aka Tibicen pronotalis (aka T. walkeri, T. marginalis) taken in Batavia, Ohio. As you can guess by the various akas (also known as), the Tibicen pronotalis has been known by several species names in the past. Sometimes it takes cicada researchers a while to figure out that two different species are the same species (which is probably the case here). Tibicen pronotalis also sounds exactly like another species of Tibicen: Tibicen dealbatus. The major difference between the T. pronotalis and the T. dealbatus is the T. dealnatus has more pruinose than the T. pronotalis. Pruinose is the white, chalky substance that appears on the bodies of cicadas.
Walker’s Cicada is found in 18 mid-western and southern states. Read more about this pretty cicada on Bug Guide, and listen to its song on Insect Singers.
The annual cicada species are out now around the United States. Here’s a small portion of the species that can be found in the USA.
How many have you found? How many have you heard?
Diceroprocta apache
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Diceroprocta olympusa
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Neocicada hieroglyphica
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Okanagana bella
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Okanagana rimosa
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Tibicen superbus
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Tibicen dorsatus
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Cicadetta calliope
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Tibicen pruinosus
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Folks have been posting images of annual cicadas on the Cicada Mania photo page.
The Brood XIX (and Brood IV stragglers) are all but gone, but annual species of cicadas are emerging around the United States right now. The various annual species of cicadas differ from periodical cicadas in many ways. Annual cicadas emerge in limited numbers every year, they are not organized into broods, they tend to be timid and camouflaged to match their environment, and while their life cycles are longer than a year, they are not as long as 13 or 17 years.
The most common annual cicada east of the Rockies is probably the various species of the Tibicen genus. There are also cicadas belonging to the Diceroprocta, Neocicada, and Okanagana genera out and about now.
Use the Insect Singers website to help match the species to their song.
This week there were many news reports that a California Academy of Sciences led expedition (The 2011 Philippine Biodiversity Expedition) of the Philippines discovered a new species of cicada with a call that sounds like laughter. I’d like to see and hear it.
Here’s an article about the expedition, the Laughing Cicada and other new discoveries.
You can see the latest 500 cicada sightings on magicicada.org. Visit their “2011 Brood XIX sightings” map. The latest reports are from Illinois and Missouri.
The latest Science Cabaret Podcast is about cicadas, and in particular, the relationship of birds and cicadas. The podcast features Dr. Walt Koenig and is hosted by Dr. Holly.
I enjoyed this blog post Kingdom of the Cicadas. It features photos and videos of the emergence from Joplin, Missouri.
There were a lot of news stories about Sparky’s Ice Cream shop in Columbia, Missouri, and their cicada ice cream. After reading dozens of articles, it seems that they only made one batch, and the local heath official(s) only advised them not to make the ice cream, but did not specifically or legally stop them from making it.
Related… cicada pie, pizza and tacos courtesy of the University of Maryland’s PDF cookbook. The cookbook is circa 2004 (Brood X) but they still work.
Looking at the Magicicada.org emergence map it appears that the cicadas have emerged everywhere they’re expected to emerge.
The next question is, when will they be gone? Local emergences typically last between four to six weeks, starting from the first emerging nymph, to the last dead cicada. I wouldn’t expect any cicadas around today to be around on Independence Day. Their corpses will be around though – so don’t forget to rake them up.
The White Eyed Cicada Contest is over and 10 people won I Love Cicada pins. See all the winning entries. Congratulations to Joey Simmons of Nashville, TN, Meagan Lang of Nashville, TN, Serena Cochrane of Gerald MO, Melissa Han of Nashville TN, Jane and Evan Skinner of Troy MO, Phyllis Rice of Poplar Bluff MO, Jack Willey of Nashville TN, Chris Lowry of Nashville TN, Nathan Voss of Spring Hill TN, and Paul Stuve of Columbia, MO.
Every state is accounted for except for Louisiana at this point. Roy Troutman was able to confirm the appearance of Magicicadas in Indiana, and a pocket of Magicicadas were discovered in Maryland. See Team Cicada’s Facebook Page for more information.
There have been a number of reports from Kansas, but that might be Brood IV (a 17 year variety) stragglers emerging 4 years early, or perhaps Brood IV(4) is accelerating to join Brood XIX.
There’s been two more winners in our White-Eyed Cicada Contest:
Meagan Lang of Nashville, TN:
and Serena Cochrane of Gerald MO:
The White-eyed cicada contest is complete!
I had ten “I Love Cicada” pins sitting in a bag in my office. Ten people found a white-eyed cicada, sent me a photo and won “I Love Cicadas pins”!
All white-eyed cicada photos: See their photos of a white eyed Magicicada.
Here’s the prize pins:
Here’s a run down of some of the best Brood XIX cicada news and multimedia from the week.
It appears that Brood XIX’s emergence is now underway in every state they were supposed to emerge in, with the exception of Louisiana, but that could be that no one has reported in from Louisiana yet. You can see the progress of the emergence on Magicicada.org’s 2011 Brood XIX Map. I’m starting to hear that the emergence is winding down in Georgia, while it’s just getting started in Illinois.
Brood XIX is truly the first periodical cicada emergence where social media (Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, Vimeo) became the primary method that people used to share and learn about cicada news and media. The Cicada Mania Facebook Page has been very active all throughout the emergence with many people sharing excellent photos and videos. I’ve been sharing the latest cicada news stories on the CicadaMania Twitter feed. If you want to keep up with the latest cicada news stories, Twitter is a great place to start.
Here is the first image of a white-eyed Brood XIX cicada that I’ve seen. The credit goes to biologizer on Flickr.
If you’re on Flickr, you can add your photos to the Cicada Photos group, or if you simply want to see all the cicada photos showing up daily, search for cicadas.
Thanks to David Green of North Eastern Arkansas for these photos of a Magicicada tredecassini.
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