I spent most of the day at the Staten Island Museum. The Staten Island Museum has North America’s largest collection of cicadas — over 35,000 specimens!!! Most, if not all the specimens came from William T. Davis’ personal collection. Davis was a naturalist and entomologist located in Staten Island, NY, who was active in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. Read more about the collection.
The museum is currently working on a huge cicada exhibit and many cicada events throughout the year. The They’re Baaack! Return of the 17-year Cicada Family Day event will happen in a few weeks.
Here’s a few shots of the museum and the collection I took with my camera phone:
Part of their giant Wall of Insects:
Number 39 in that photo is Hemisciera maculipennis, aka the “stop and go cicada”. When alive the cicada’s coloring is green and red, like a traffic signal. Here is a photo of a live H. maculipennis.
Tibicen and Cicada Killer Wasps:
Tacua speciosa detail:
A giant light-up cicada outside the museum:
Just part of the Staten Island Museum’s cicada collection
Thanks to Ed Johnson, Director of Science, for showing me many of amazing specimens in the museum’s collection.
Bonus: You can download a copy of William T. Davis’ document North American Cicadas. It’s free!
