{"id":7108,"date":"2017-06-29T19:11:10","date_gmt":"2017-06-30T02:11:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cicadamania.com\/cicadas\/?p=7108"},"modified":"2020-05-23T21:03:03","modified_gmt":"2020-05-24T04:03:03","slug":"okanagana-cicadas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cicadamania.com\/cicadas\/okanagana-cicadas\/","title":{"rendered":"Okanagana Cicadas"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Okanagana
Photo credit: left, O. rimosa by Natasha; right, O. bella by Matt Berger.<\/p>\n

Okanagana<\/strong> is a genus of cicadas that share their name with the Okanagan Lake, Valley & County areas of British Columbia, Canada. As you might guess, Okanagana are common in Canada. It is likely that the genus was named in tribute to the Okanagan people<\/a>.<\/p>\n

West of the Mississippi, O. synodica synodica<\/a> & O. bella<\/a> are the most common species in terms of the number of states and providences they are found. O. canadensis<\/a> & O. rimosa<\/a> are the most common species east of the Mississippi.<\/p>\n

Lifespans and Lifecycles:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Okanagana rimosa have a lifespan of 9 years. Okanagana synodica have a lifespan of possibly 17 to 19 years! (see Campbell et al. 10.1073\/pnas.1421386112<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Okanagana rimosa also appear to be proto-periodical (source<\/a>) meaning they are abundant in some years, and scarce, but not absent in others. <\/p>\n

“Soper et al (112) showed experimentally that Okanagana rimosa had a life
\ncycle of 9 years, and that in the field during a 9-year period (1962 to
\n1970) it was extremely abundant in 4 years and scarce or absent in the
\nother 5. Heath (32) also studied cicadas of the genus Okanagana and
\nfound several species that appear to be protoperiodical.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I’m not sure, but I suppose other species of Okanagana have proto-periodical lifecycles as well. This would explain why people see Okanagana in great numbers one year, and very few in previous years.<\/p>\n

\"Okanagana
Okanagana adult photographed by Les Daniels<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Identification:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Okanagana are typically around between June and July, depending on the species and latitude. <\/p>\n

Okanagana are often black, with white, beige or orange highlights on their wings and body. The black color of their exoskeletons helps them absorb warmth from the sun. <\/p>\n

Look for four symmetrical markings on their mesonotum (back). The image at the beginning the the article highlights these markings. <\/p>\n

One Okanagana that has atypical coloration is the O. viridis which is green<\/a>. This outlier is one of the few species found in southern states.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Photo credit: left, O. rimosa by Natasha; right, O. bella by Matt Berger. Okanagana is a genus of cicadas that share their name with the Okanagan Lake, Valley & County areas of British Columbia, Canada. As you might guess, Okanagana are common in Canada. It is likely that the genus was named in tribute to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,165],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7108","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-okanagana","category-proto-periodical"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cicadamania.com\/cicadas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7108","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cicadamania.com\/cicadas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cicadamania.com\/cicadas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cicadamania.com\/cicadas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cicadamania.com\/cicadas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7108"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.cicadamania.com\/cicadas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7108\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cicadamania.com\/cicadas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cicadamania.com\/cicadas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7108"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cicadamania.com\/cicadas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}