Dedicated to cicadas, the most amazing insects in the world.
Psaltoda plaga aka Black Prince photo by Kevin Lee.
Amongst young Aussie kids the legendary White Knight is believed to exist but it is really just a black prince. When cicadas such as double drummers and black princes first emerge they appear white and gradually they develop their distinctive pigmentation. This is the before and after shots of the same cicada.
Psaltoda moerens is a cicada found in Australia. It is also known as the Redeye Cicada or Cherryeye Cicada.
Photo by David Emery:
Scientific classification:
Family: Cicadidae
Subfamily: Cicadinae
Tribe: Psaltodini
SubTribe: ?
Genus: Psaltoda
Species: Psaltoda moerens (Germar, 1834)
For more information about this cicada, visit A web guide to the cicadas of Australia by L. W. Popple.
Tribe information comes from: MARSHALL, DAVID C. et al.A molecular phylogeny of the cicadas (Hemiptera: Cicadidae) with a review of tribe and subfamily classification.Zootaxa, [S.l.], v. 4424, n. 1, p. 1—64, may 2018. ISSN 1175-5334. Available at: https://www.biotaxa.org/Zootaxa/article/view/zootaxa.4424.1.1
Can you identify this cicada from Brisbane Australia? These images were sent to us by Darren Fairbrother. Help us id this cicada.
Update! It is a Psaltoda claripennis Ashton, 1921 aka Clanger, from Australia.
For more information about this cicada, visit A web guide toThe cicadas of Australia by L. W. Popple.
Scientific classification:
Family: Cicadidae
Subfamily: Cicadinae
Tribe: Cryptotympanini
SubTribe: Cryptotympanina
Genera: Genera
Species: Psaltoda claripennis Ashton, 1921
Psaltoda aurora Distant, 1881, is found in Northeastern Queensland Australia and is commonly known as the Red Roarer.
Scientific classification:
Family: Cicadidae
Subfamily: Cicadinae
Tribe: Cryptotympanini
SubTribe: Cryptotympanina
Genus: Psaltoda
Species: Psaltoda aurora Distant, 1881
Psaltoda genus description by W. L. Distant:
Characters. — Head including eyes a little wider than anterior margin of pronotum, more than half as long as space between eyes and about as long as pronotum, ocelli on middle of vertex and much farther apart from eyes than from each other, face longer than broad, strongly globose; pronotum shorter than mesonotum including the cruciform elevation, the lateral margins not convexly ampliated but considerably narrowed anteriorly; mesonotum with its base narrower than head including eyes; abdomen considerably longer than broad, beneath more or less obliquely depressed from base to apex;opercula short, not or scarcely passing base of abdomen ; tympana covered; tegmina about three times as long as broad, basal cell longer than broad, apical areas eight ; wings more than half the length of tegmina, apical areas six.
This video taken by Samantha Madell in NSW Australia is a time lapse video of of a Redeye Cicada (Psaltoda moerens) molting.
Here is an Redeye cicada (Psaltoda moerens) photo taken by David Emery. The Redeye is also know as the Cherryeye.
The Redeye cicada can be found in eastern NSW, Victoria and Tasmania, and are most abundant in late November and December. (Moulds, M.S.. Australian Cicadas Kennsignton: New South Wales Press, 1990, p.75)