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Audio, Sounds, Songs Beameria Fidicinini U.S.A. William T. Davis

Beameria wheeleri Davis, 1934

Song type: Call

Source: ©Insect Singers | Species: B. wheeleri

Name, Location and Description

Classification:

Family: Cicadidae
Subfamily: Cicadinae
Tribe: Fidicinini
Subtribe: Guyalnina
Genus: Beameria
Species: Beameria wheeleri Davis, 1934

List of sources

  1. Full Binomial Names: ITIS.gov
  2. Common names: BugGuide.net; The Songs of Insects by Lang Elliott and Wil Herschberger; personal memory.
  3. Locations: Biogeography of the Cicadas (Hemiptera: Cicadidae) of North America, North of Mexico by Allen F. Sanborn and Polly K. Phillips.
  4. Descriptions, Colors: personal observations from specimens or photos from many sources. Descriptions are not perfect, but may be helpful.

Notes:

  • Some descriptions are based on aged specimens which have lost some or a lot of their color.
Categories
Audio, Sounds, Songs Beameria Fidicinini Philip Reese Uhler U.S.A.

Beameria venosa (Uhler, 1888) aka Aridland Cicada

Song type: Call


Source: ©Insect Singers | Species: B. venosa

Name, Location and Description

Classification:

Family: Cicadidae
Subfamily: Cicadinae
Tribe: Fidicinini
Subtribe: Guyalnina
Genus: Beameria
Species: Beameria venosa (Uhler, 1888)

List of sources

  1. Full Binomial Names: ITIS.gov
  2. Common names: BugGuide.net; The Songs of Insects by Lang Elliott and Wil Herschberger; personal memory.
  3. Locations: Biogeography of the Cicadas (Hemiptera: Cicadidae) of North America, North of Mexico by Allen F. Sanborn and Polly K. Phillips.
  4. Descriptions, Colors: personal observations from specimens or photos from many sources. Descriptions are not perfect, but may be helpful.

Notes:

  • Some descriptions are based on aged specimens which have lost some or a lot of their color.
Categories
Music Pop Culture

Some Songs About Cicadas

Everyone knows cicadas love to sing (the males) or be serenaded (the females).

A lot of people like to write songs inspired by cicadas. If you search online music stores or YouTube, you’ll find hundreds of songs about cicadas, in every genre imaginable including rap, country, rock, folk, dance, parody, classical and experimental.

Here are some cicada songs:

The Cicada Song by CincyPolly

Genre: Rock.

Cicada Serenade by The Pheromones

Genre: 1980s Rap.

Cicada By Hannah Gansen

Laura Imbruglia sings her song Cicada on a talk show for teens (YouTube Link):

(You might want to skip ahead 20 seconds to when the music starts.)

Here’s one of my favorite bands, Southern Culture on the Skids peforming their song Cicada Rock (YouTube link):

CICADA Song – SICKA CICADAS by Kathy Ashworth:

Not quite a song, but still very much an audio performance about cicadas: Tessa Farmer and David Rothenberg perform Magicicada in Dublin (YouTube Link):

Do you have a favorite cicada song? Let us know in the comments!

Bonus: Another cicada song send by a reader:

CICADA by Liam Titcomb (YouTube link):

And more:

Seventeen Years (a cicada love song) – Lloyd H. Miller (YouTube Link):

Baby Bug by Samm Bennett:

“Seventeen Years” by Jen Schaffer and the Shiners:

I Ate A Cicada Today:

Periodic Cicadas by Dr. Chordate:

No video for this song, but Dr Chordate wrote a song called Periodic Cicadas.

Categories
Music

The 17-Year Locust Tour by The Agency

I buy things just because they’re cicada related.

Here is my latest purchase:

The Agency

This week I bought The 17-Year Locust Tour by the band The Agency. It was recorded in Leetown, West Virginia, and copyrighted in 1993. Periodical cicadas are known as “17-Year Locusts” in the U.S., which is where this band got the name for the album. My guess is the album title was inspired by the Brood XIV emergence of 1991.

I haven’t yet listened to the album from start to finish but it falls into the hard rock genre.

The artwork is very nice and was done by bassist and singer Paul Sager using Corel Draw. I used Corel Draw to create the first Cicada Mania logo.

Categories
FAQs

What do cicadas symbolize?

You might ask, what do cicadas symbolize? What are cicadas a metaphor for?

2005-dantibicen-7

Cicadas, for many, represent personal change, renewal, rebirth, and transformation.

Unlike a butterfly, moth, or other insects that undergo complete metamorphosis, cicadas have no pupal state. They transform from one fully-functioning state (instar) to another — one viable form, in a small amount of time, changing to another. The cicada’s transformation is similar to that of human beings. If a person wants or needs to make a change in their life, they don’t enclose themselves in a pod and emerge the next spring (I suppose some might) — more likely they remain in their human form as they change.

A lot of people use cicadas to symbolize their own personal transformation, in art, song, poetry, or even a tattoo. The cicada inherently symbolizes what they were — earth-bound, nymphs –and all the glory of what they have become — adults with wings & a song.

Cicadas can also be a symbol for a musician or singer since they sing.

Since cicadas sing mostly during the summer months, they are a symbol of summer and a precursor to the harvest.


Watch some cicada transformations:

An aside:

Although cicadas are bugs that are around in June, actual “June Bugs” are not cicadas. They are leaf-eating beetles belonging to the genus Phyllophaga.

June Bug

Categories
Brood VII Magicicada Periodical

The Periodical Cicada Brood VII Revisited

The Internet Archive has a lot of cicada documents and information, including a growing collection of articles from journals.

Today I came across a paper about Brood VII called The Periodical Cicada Brood vii Revisited (Homoptera, Cicadidae) by L. L. Pechuman, published in 1985 in the journal Entomology News (link to the article). Brood VII will be back in New York in 2018 (not too far away) so I’m glad I found this now. Brood VII is interesting because it is geographically isolated from other broods, near the Finger Lakes area of New York. This always makes me wonder what happened that led to their isolation (glacial melting, a massive die off of host trees… who knows).

The article is a quick, but melancholy read — unfortunately Brood VII is a small and dwindling brood; it has gone extinct in many areas, and has suffered over-predation by birds in recent emergences. “Populations were just not high enough to support ‘predator satiation'”, according to L. L. Pechuman.

People who witness massive periodical cicada emergences would never think that they were a fragile insect, but they are and papers like this make that fact abundantly clear.

Categories
Fireworks Roy Troutman Video

Cicada Fireworks

Update! New packaging for the Clustering Cicada fireworks (thx Roy). Find it here.

cicada fireworks

The Fourth of July should be fun this year at Roy Troutman’s place. Check out the Clustering Cicada fireworks he found.

Cicada Fireworks

Video of “Chirping Cicada” firework by Roy

"Chirping Cicada" firework from Roy Troutman on Vimeo.

Cicada Fireworks

Categories
Papers and Documents

19 Articles about Cicadas from 2015

Here are 19 articles from scientific journals about cicadas from 2015 that you may have missed.

January:

A review of the cicada genus Kosemia Matsumura (Hemiptera: Cicadidae)

February:

External morphology and calling song characteristics in Tibicen plebejus (Hemiptera: Cicadidae)

The phylogenetic utility of acetyltransferase (ARD1) and glutaminyl tRNA synthetase (QtRNA) for reconstructing Cenozoic relationships as exemplified by the large Australian cicada Pauropsalta generic complex

March:

Cicada genus Pomponia Stål, 1866 (Hemiptera: Cicadidae) from Vietnam and Cambodia, with a new species, a new record, and a key to the species

April:

Intraspecific sexual mimicry for finding females in a cicada: males produce ‘female sounds’ to gain reproductive benefit

A new cicada species of the genus Psithyristria Stål, 1870 (Hemiptera: Cicadidae: Cicadinae: Psithyristriini) from Luzon, Philippines, with a key to the 15 species

A redescription of Yoyetta landsboroughi (Distant) and Y. tristrigata (Goding and Froggatt) (Hemiptera: Cicadidae) and description of four new related species

May:

A review of the cicada genus Haphsa Distant from China (Hemiptera: Cicadidae)

Description of two new cicada species of the genus Poviliana Boulard (Insecta: Hemiptera, Cicadoidea, Cicadidae) from New Caledonia

June:

Four new species of cicadas from Papua New Guinea (Hemiptera: Cicadoidea: Cicadidae)

Description of a new genus, Auritibicen gen. nov., of Cryptotympanini Hemiptera: Cicadidae) with redescriptions of Auritibicen pekinensis (Haupt, 1924) comb. nov. and Auritibicen slocumi (Chen, 1943) comb. nov. from China and a key to the species of Auritibicen

Cicadidae types (Hemiptera-Cicadomorpha) housed at the Museo de La Plata entomological collection (Argentina)

July:

Molecular phylogenetics, diversification, and systematics of Tibicen Latreille 1825 and allied cicadas of the tribe Cryptotympanini, with three new genera and emphasis on species from the USA and Canada (Hemiptera: Auchenorrhyncha: Cicadidae)

August:

New species of Simona Moulds, 2012 and Chelapsalta Moulds, 2012 cicadas (Cicadidae: Cicadettinae: Cicadettini) from Australia: comparative morphology, songs, behaviour and distributions

Additional records of cicadas (Hemiptera: Cicadidae) to the fauna of Mindanao, Philippines, with the description of three new species and a key to the species of Champaka Distant

September:

Comparative morphology of the distal segments of Malpighian tubules in cicadas and spittlebugs, with reference to their functions and evolutionary indications to Cicadomorpha (Hemiptera: Auchenorrhyncha)

October:

New combinations for six species belonging to Cryptotympanini Handlirsch (Hemiptera: Cicadidae), former members of the genus Tibicen Latreille, 1825

November:

The visual system of the Australian ‘Redeye’ cicada (Psaltoda moerens), Arthropod Structure & Development

Erection of a new genus Biura gen. nov., of the subtribe Aolina (Hemiptera: Cicadidae: Cicadinae: Dundubiini)

Categories
Christmas

Cicada Christmas Lights

I made cicada Christmas lights using some LED USB Christmas lights, and some plastic cicada whistles from Australia. The song of cicadas heralds the Christmas season in many countries in the southern hemisphere like Australia.

CicadaMania Cicada Christmas Lights from Cicada Mania on Vimeo.

Cicada Christmas Lights

Here’s the whistles:
Whistles

Bonus Christmas Cicada stuff:

AI Santa Cicada:
AI Santa Cicada

There is a cicada nicknamed the Kobonga Christmas Clanger in Australia (thx David Marshall and Kathy Hill ):

Christmas Clanger Kobanga

How about a cicada Christmas Wreath? This wreath was made by Jenny Pate back in 2004.

Cicada Christmas Wreath made by Jenny Pate.

Or a Cicada Christmas Card from Sam Orr:

Cicada Christmas card

An illustration I made a few years ago:
Cicada Christmas

Christmas Cards:
Christmas Card

Christmas Card

Christmas ornaments made with cicada skins?

Clear Christmas ornaments with cicada exuvia

Categories
Amphipsalta David Marshall Kathy Hill Kikihia New Zealand

New Zealand Cicada Information

Old Map of New Zealand

There isn’t a lot of New Zealand cicada information on this website, but I wanted to point you to a few good resources if you are interested:

First, there’s the NEW ZEALAND CICADAS (HEMIPTERA: CICADIDAE): A VIRTUAL IDENTIFICATION GUIDE which features photographs and extensive information about the cicadas of New Zealand. The site has an abundance of information, and a wonderful design & layout.

Second, there’s Cicada Central’s New Zealand Cicada website, which features an electronic field guide of New Zealand Cicada Species, a specimen database, and a photo gallery featuring Kikihia, Amphipsaltas, and Maoricicada.

Third, iNaturalist is an excellent place to discover information about cicadas, and report sightings.

I asked David Marshall of InsectSingers.com, “when does New Zealand cicada season start and end?” His answer essentially is that it depends on the location, elevation, and species, but the best months are between December and April. Interestingly, in certain locations K. muta sing every month of the year.

Read the downloadable article Chorus Cicada, Amphipsalta zelandica (Boisduval), males calling with only wing-clicks by Kathy B. R. Hill, The Weta (2012) 43(1): 15—20, for more information.

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