Here are two photos from the Cicada Mania festival by Roy Troutman:
An orange eyed Magicicada:
3 nymphs crawling up a tree limb:
People who have contributed cicada photos, videos or other media and information to cicadamania.com.
June 9, 2007
June 5, 2007
June 1, 2007
Adult Cicadas
This is as adult as it gets for Magicicadas.
Another great photo from Roy Troutman (who I apologize to for the crop job on his original photo).
May 28, 2007
Diceroprocta vitripennis. out in Mississippi
Here’s a break in the Magicicada mania: a Diceroprocta vitripennis. This photo was taken by Cicada Mania regular Paul Krombholz in Jackson Mississippi just last week. Cicadas like Diceroprocta vitripennis are annual cicadas: they emerge each year in small numbers, and as you can see, they rely on camouflage for survival. Annual cicadas are also quite shy compared to the periodic Magicicadas — they have very different life strategies. American annual cicadas rely on stealth and cunning to survive while searching for a mate. Periodic cicadas rely on the fact that there are so many of them, that some will always survive to carry on the species.
Notes from Paul:
I am continuing this season to try to get pictures of all the cicadas in the
Jackson, Mississippi area. I just got a female specimen of Diceroprocta
vitripennis. I found it in low vegetation on a sand bar next to the Pearl
River. Thanks to John Davis and the collectors at the Mississippi Museum of
Science for the tip on where to look for them! From head to wing tips, it
is 38 mm, but the wings of this species are longer in relation to body
length than those of Tibicens. Body length of this vitripennis was only
22mm.
May 22, 2007
Brood XIV Stragglers in Ohio, Part 3
Here’s another Brood XIV straggler from Roy Troutman’s yard. It’s hard to believe all that cicada once fit in that tiny skin.
May 20, 2007
Imagining Magicicada
In the coming days I’ll get a lot of emails from people telling me that they’ve found albino cicadas — well, they aren’t albinos, they just haven’t turned black yet. Once a cicada splits its nymph skin and imagines into the adult form, it takes some time for it to turn the familiar black color. Now, if you find a cicada with blue eyes, that’s different, that’s unusual (about 1 in 1000), so we want to hear about that.
This picture was take by Roy Troutman, last night in Batavia Ohio. It’s important to note that this is a Brood XIV straggler and not a Brood XIII cicada.
May 15, 2007
Brood XIV emerges before Brood XIII
Brood XIII cicadas are a bunch of slackers. Brood XIV stragglers (Brood XIV isn’t due until next year) have already emerged and imagined into their adult form around Ohio.
Here’s some photos from Matt Berger:
What’s up Brood XIII? What are you waiting for? An invitation?
May 14, 2007
Brood XIV Stragglers in Ohio
Illinois, Iowa, Indiana and Wisconsin aren’t the only states that can look forward to periodic cicadas.
Brood XIV stragglers are beginning to emerge in Ohio. So far we’ve had reports of chimneys from Roy and some photos of nymphs taken by Matt Berger in Terrace Park, Ohio (hopefully he’ll let us post the pics). Stragglers are periodic cicadas the emerge a year or more ahead or behind schedule. Brood XIV is due to emerge in many states next year (KY, GA, IN, MA, MD, NC, NJ, NY, OH, PA, TN, VA, WVA), but a few will emerge this year instead.
Here’s a photo of a cicada chimney taken by Roy Troutman in Ohio.
November 12, 2006
Side views of N. pruinosus and M. figuratus
Tibicen season is officially over in central Mississippi. Here’s some great side view photos from Paul Krombholz.
Neotibicen pruinosus pruinosus (Say, 1825):
Megatibicen figuratus (Walker, 1858):
September 5, 2006
An interesting question about Neotibicen identification
Paul Krombholz has an interesting question about Neotibicen identification.
In Kathy Hill’s picture of 18 species, T. canicularis looks quite different from T. davisi, but I have at least one T. davisi, captured in my back yard, that looks very similar to three canicularis individuals I caught in Northern Illinois a couple of weeks ago. The canicularis individuals all have the white “hip” spots and none of my davisi have them have them. T. davisi has a slightly larger head. The big question is, What features reliably distinguish the two species considering all the variety seen within species?
