Category: England

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England Tibicina

A cicada… in England?!

A few years back a project was launched to discover if the New Forest cicada (Cicadetta montana) still exists in England. It once existed in southern England for sure, but seems to have gone extinct. To date, none have been found.

Recently a cicada was reported found in England on iNaturalist, appearing to belong to the genus Tibicina. The best resource for European cicadas is SONGS OF EUROPEAN SINGING CICADAS. Looking at the navigation of the website it looks like there are nine Tibicina in Europe (maybe more). The cicada on iNaturalist is brown with orange highlights: u-shaped marks on its mesonotum, an orange outline of its pronotal collar, and an orange line down the middle of its head. Wing veins appear brown & black and appear to be warped during the molting process. It might be teneral — still soft from the molting process — and so its adult colors have not fully developed.

So — is it a native to England or a stowaway in some cargo from mainland Europe?

The Twitter account @MorphoCicada posted this on Twitter, which alerted me to the matter.

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Croatia England France Genera Italy Slovenia Spain

Cicadas of Europe

Cicada Linnaeus, 1758

Cicada orni photos by Iván Jesus Torresano García. Spain. 2014.
Cicada orni photo by Iván Jesus Torresano García.

Euryphara Horváth, 1912

Euryphara contentei photos by Iván Jesus Torresano García. Spain. 2014.
Euryphara contentei photo by Iván Jesus Torresano García.

Hilaphura Webb, 1979

Hilaphura varipes photos by Iván Jesus Torresano García. Spain. 2014.
Hilaphura varipes photo by Iván Jesus Torresano García.

Lyristes Horváth, 1926

Lyristes plebejus photo by Iván Jesús Torresano García
Tibicen/Lyristes plebejus photo by Iván Jesús Torresano García

Galleries:

Tettigettalna Puissant, 2010

Tettigettalna argentata photo by Iván Jesus Torresano García
Tettigettalna argentata photo by Iván Jesus Torresano García

Blog Posts By Country:

Websites Dedicated to the Cicadas of Europe for further research:

  1. Songs of European Singing Cicadas. Many images, sound files and text content.
  2. SONGS OF CICADAS from Slovenia and Istria (Croatia) (arnes.si) Many cicada photos, sound files and about six paragraphs of information about the cicadas of Slovenia and Croatia by Prof.dr. Matija Gogala.
  3. La cigale : un insecte vraiment étonnant ! Lots of text content, photos and video of the cicadas of France.
  4. Species Action Plan: New Forest Cicada (Cicadetta montana) (ukbap.org.uk) A photo and about ten paragraphs of information. England.
  5. Welcome to the New Forest Cicada Project. A site devoted to finding the New Forrest Cicada in England.
  6. Cicadas of Spain. There are a lot of photos and video from Spain on Cicada Mania thanks to Iván Jesús Torresano García.

Click the images for larger versions, the species name and the name of the photographer.

Categories
Cicadetta England

The New Forest Cicada Project

I mentioned the New Forest Cicada a few weeks ago. It is the only cicada native to the United Kingdom, but no one has observed it since 2000, so it might be extinct. I hope it is not extinct.

Now there is a team of researchers called The New Forest Cicada Project who plan to use a smartphone app, for your Android or iOS device, to listen for and identify the cicada.

Do you live in England? Are you in the area of the New Forest National Park? If so, make sure you download the app when it’s ready and then next May-July, go listening for the New Forest cicada.

This story was also mentioned in a Guardian UK article.

Categories
Cicadetta England

New Forest cicada (Cicadetta montana)

There is only one type of cicada in the United Kingdom, and it is called the New Forest cicada (Cicadetta montana). It is named for the New Forest National Park, where these cicadas can be found in the pasture woodlands. It is both rare and endangered, according to this FAQ, however, according to another website, it might be extinct. It sounds like a small gas motor (in my opinion).

The website ARKive has Five videos of the New Forest cicada, including one featuring cicada larvae still in a tree branch.

Cicadas belonging to the Genus Cicadetta are known as “small grass cicadas”. The New Forest cicada belongs to the same subfamily (Subfamily Cicadettinae) as the Magicicada periodical cicadas that live in the U.S.A.