Ricky B sent us this sound file of a cicada that he recorded in August of 2010 in Chicago:
Can you guess which species it is?
Hint: try sites like Insect Singers and Songs of Insects sites for ideas.
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Cicada Alphabet: H
H is for Hieroglyphic Cicada. The Neocicada hieroglyphica a.k.a. Hieroglyphic Cicada is found in the south-eastern United States. It’s active in the late spring and early summer. There are multiple subspecies of the Hieroglyphic Cicada including the Neocicada hieroglyphica hieroglyphica and Neocicada hieroglyphica johannis, according to InsectSingers.com.
Photo by Matt Berger.
Listen to a Hieroglyphic Cicada:
Neocicada hieroglyphica singing by Joe Green from Cicada Mania on Vimeo.
- Haemolymph is a blood-like fluid found in some arthropods like cicadas. Cicadas use haemolymph to inflate their wings when they eclose (leave their nymph form and become adults), as well as to transport nutrients throughout the cicada’s body.
- Harvest Fly is common name for Tibicen cicadas, presumably in areas where harvests take place. I’ve heard tales that the harvest is supposed to take place a month after the last Tibicen sings.
- Kathy Hill is a cicada researcher who is “working on descriptions of new species of cicadas from New Zealand, Australia and North America, several discovered through recognition of their unique songs” (quoted from Kathy and David Marshall’s wonderful InsectSingers.com website). Kathy is responsible for this unbelievable photo of 18 different USA Tibicen specimens.
- Huechys sanguinea is a beautiful black and red cicada from Asia. Here’s a photo of a Huechys sanguinea:
(Photo by Huechys sanguinea by =spurdog=, on Flickr).
G is for Greengrocer. The Greengrocer is the green morph of the Australian cicada Cyclochila australasiae. These cicadas can be found in south-eastern Australia. They have a large pronotal collar, and if you use your imagination, it looks like they’re wearing a tiny Pith helmet above their eyes.
Here’s a close of up of a Greengrocer (from Bron):
Here’s a box of Greengrocers (from Kevin Lee):
- Gaeana is a genus of cicadae found in Asia, like the black, gray, yellow and green Gaeana cheni
- Matija Gogala is a cicada researcher located in Ljubljana Slovenia. His Songs of Cicadas and Phantastic songs of the S.E. Asian cicadas! websites have been online since the 1990s.
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Cicada Alphabet: F
F is for flagging. Flagging is the term for when leaves of a tree die as a result of oviposition (when the cicada lays eggs in the branches of trees).
Photo credit: Daniel Herms, The Ohio State University, Bugwood.org (Forestry Images).
The Floury Baker, aka Aleeta curvicosta, is an Australian cicada. It has excellent camouflage, as you can see from the photo:
Photo credit: Michelle Thompson.
Fidicina is a Genus of cicadae. Here is a photo of a Fidicina mannifera from Brazil:
Photo by Leonardo Milhomem.
Formotosena is a Genus of cicada. Here is a photo of a Formotosena montivaga from Thailand:
Photo by Michel Chantraine.
Hey,
If you’re interested in North American cicada species, and you’re looking for sound files of those cicada’s songs, check out Insect Singers, a new website from cicada researchers David Marshall and Kathy Hill. It has dozens of audio samples. Awesome!
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Cicada Alphabet: E
- E is for exuvia. People call them shells, skins, cicada ghosts and a dozen other names, but the proper name for what is left behind when a cicada transforms from a nymph to an adult is an exuvia The plural is exuviae. Also known as Integument.
- Egg slits, aka oviposition slits, are the grooves a female cicada makes in a branch in which she will lay her eggs. Here’s a photo of some egg slits and here’s a photo of eggs in a egg slit. Call them oviposition slits if you’re talking to a scientist.
- Emergence can refer to:
- When the adult cicada emerges from its exuvia
- When the nymph emerges from the ground
- Best answer: When and where a particular group of cicadas will emerge, for example, “There will be an emergence of Periodical cicadas around May 15th in the Nashville Tennessee area in 2011.”
- Euterpnosia chibensis is a cicada that exists in Japan. Here are some photos of Euterpnosia chibensis. These cicadas are well known in Japan, and there are 3 sub-species: E. chibensis chibensis, E. chibensis okinawana, and E. chibensis daitoensis. These cicadas look a lot like the North American species Neocicada hieroglyphica.
Thanks for Suzanne M for the scan of the Archie McPhee catalog featuring the amazing cicada keychain.
I actually finally found one of these thanks to a family member.
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Cicada Alphabet: D
D is for Dog-Day Cicada. The Tibicen canicularis, aka Dog-Day Cicada, is thought to be known as the Dog-Day Cicada because they are most active during the “dog days of summer”, which are the days when the star Sirius is visible in the Northern Hemishphere (July 3-August 11)1. Canicularis is derived from the Latin word canis, which means dog. Tibicen davisi is known as the Southern Dog-Day Cicada. Folks use the term “Dog-Day Cicada” for other species of Tibicen as well, but the T. canicularis the true Dog-Day Cicada.
Image of a N. canicularis (on the left) and N. davisi by Paul Krombholz:
Diceroprocta is a genus of cicadas that exist in North America.
- The green and black Diceroprocta vitripennis
- The green, brown and black Diceroprocta olympusa
- The black, cream and white colored Diceroprocta apache, which are well know to residents of Arizona where they hang out on Oleander trees.
Diemeniana euronotiana is a pretty black, orange and red cicada that exists in south-eastern coastal area of Australia2. See a photo of a Diemeniana euronotiana.
The Double Drummer aka Thopha saccata is an Australian cicada. It exists on the east coast of Australia and prefers eucalyptus trees2. The Double Drummer is a large cicada, as you can see from this photo.
Dundubia is a genus of cicada that exists in Asia. See a photo of a disected Dundbia on Cicada Mania.
- Dog Days http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/dog%20days
- Australian Cicadas by M.S. Moulds.
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What’s in a name?
We’ve discussed, in previous posts, issues with the naming of Tibicen cicadas; first there were gender agreement issues and then the naming of Tibicen tibicen cicadas (which most people still refer to as Tibicen chloromera).
The gender issue deals with agreement of the Genus and species name. Tibicen superba, for instance, should be called Tibicen superbus since the “en” in Tibicen is male, and the ending of suberbus needs to match that with “us”.
Quoting from Bug Guide1:
“All the —a endings in the species of Tibicen need to be —us, e.g. bifida should be bifidus”, per Allen Sanborn (Barry University, Florida), pers. comm., 2008. (Note, many taxonomists working on larger groups, e.g. leps, have abandoned gender agreement, but apparently this isn’t the case with Cicadas. MQ)
The story for Tibicen chloromera is a bit different. First, chloromera needed to be changed to chloromerus because of the gender agreement issue. Then that had to be changed to Tibicen tibicen because historically this particular cicada was referred to as Tibicen tibicen before Tibicen chloromera. This could be changed, if someone found a precedent of the insect being called a Tibicen chloromera, but then still we’d have to call it a Tibicen chloromerus because of the gender agreement issue.
Quoting from Bug Guide again2:
The long-standing name for this common species, Tibicen chlormera, has apparently been changed to Tibicen tibicen based on priority. See Synonyms and references. –Cotinis 17 October 2008.
That being said, most folks on the web call the Tibicen tibicen “Tibicen chloromera” to this day. Whether this is an act of rebellion, force of habit, loyalty to other researchers who don’t agree with the name change, I’m not sure.
Taxonomic name changes discussed, lets move to common Tibicen names.
Our last post featured Elias Bonaros photo of a Tibicen auletes, which I labeled a Scissor-grinder, a common name for the insect — or so I thought. Elias was quick to point out that other resources call another cicada, the Tibicen pruinosus, a Scissor-grinder. Elias is no slouch when it comes to cicada information, and he has correctly corrected me in the past in mistakes I’ve made, but I needed to figure out where i got my possibly erroneous information from.
Bug Guide calles the T. auletes a Scissor-grinder3 as well as Northern Dusk-singing cicada, as does another IOWA State website4.
University of Florida scientists/researchers, on the other hand, call the Tibicen pruinosus5 a Scissor-grinder as does the Song of Insects6 website. The University of Florida document doesn’t provide a common name for T. auletes, but the Song of Insects site refers to them as Northern Dusk-singing Cicadas.
So… any tie breakers out there? It could be that in the South the T. pruinosus is the Scissor-grinder and in the Mid-west it’s the T. auletes.
Here’s my list of references:
- Genus Tibicen http://bugguide.net/node/view/5949
- Species Tibicen tibicen http://bugguide.net/node/view/6966
- Species Tibicen auletes – Scissor-grinder http://bugguide.net/node/view/6968
- What is a Locust http://www.ipm.iastate.edu/ipm/hortnews/node/1936
- Cicadas (of Florida), Neocicada hieroglyphica (Say), Tibicen, Diceroprocta and Melampsalta spp. (Insecta: Hemiptera: Cicadidae) http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/in602
- Song of Insects http://www.musicofnature.com/songsofinsects/iframes/specieslist.html
New Tibicen auletes photos from Elias Bonaros.
The Tibicen auletes aka Northern Dusk-singing Cicada is the largest of the Tibicen cicadas in the U.S.A.
