Cicada ManiaThis is Part 3 of my 2025 Morning Cicada (Swamp Cicada, Neotibicen tibicen tibicen) review.
These photos are of cicadas that have recently molted from their nymphal skins and are expanding and hardening their wings.
This is part 2 of 2025 Morning Cicada (Swamp Cicada, Neotibicen tibicen tibicen) photos.
Now check out Part 1: the Nymphs or Part 3: teneral cicadas hardening wings.
2025 was a good year for Morning (aka Swamp aka Neotibicen tibicen tibicen) cicadas in New Jersey. The nymph season lasted from the second week of July to the third week of August.
Each year I post the images and videos of Morning Cicadas that I take.
Here’s the first post in the 2025 series: nymphs!
Go to Part 2: Molting.
The Nanai cicadas (Raiateana knowlesi (Distant, 1907)) of Fiji are back after 8-years, and Fiji is issuing stamps to celebrate their emergence.
Update! If you want to see what the Nanai look like, visit the Cicada Discussion, Science and Study Group on Facebook and view Elias Bonaro’s 9/22 post.
Nanai cicadas are special because they have an 8-year periodical cycle. They are found in the hills of Viti Levu island of the Fiji archipelago. They are also special because of the Legend of The Nanai and their importance to Fijian culture.
2025 Nanai stamps will be available from Post Fiji Pte Limited. They start shipping on the 25th of September (new date). See this BROCHURE – THE NANAI EMERGENCE for more information.
Here’s an image of Nanai stamps from 2009 (or maybe 2010):
The Nanai are similar to Magicicada cicadas in the United States in that they have precise periodic lifecycles. Nanai have 8-year cycles and Magicicada have 13 or 17-year cycles.
The Nanai are similar to North American Dog-Day cicadas, European Lyristes plebejus, and the Tacua speciosa of Malaysia & Indonesia, in that they belong to the same Tribe (Tacuini) and share similar anatomy like hidden tympani (the noise makers).
Neo Scott allowed us to share his images and sound files of the cicada Huechys phaenicura. Neo Scott is a cicada expert who you should follow on iNaturalist and X. He found the Huechys phaenicura cicada species in Antique, Panay Is., Philippines. Huechys phaenicura is related to “the medicinal cicada” Huechys sanguinea, and both cicadas belong to the sub-tribe Huechysina and tribe Cicadettini.
Turn up the volume to hear it.
Thank you, Coleman Cobbs, for these photos of a Neotibicen similaris cicada. The cicada was found in from Rapides Parish, Louisiana. This cicada looks “similar” to many other species of Neotibicen cicadas aka “Dog Day”.
Lynn Faust, author of the book Fireflies, Glow-worms, and Lightning Bugs, wrote us in early May concerned that the wild hogs in her area had rooted up and eaten Brood XIV cicadas about to emerge. Hogs are omnivores and are excellent at finding food buried underground, so her assumption makes sense.
She told us that the Turkey Camp on Greasy Creek had hundreds of intact pre and post emergence cicada turrets in 2008, with lots of chorusing. However, in 2025, there were no intact cicada turrets where the hogs plowed up the ground. There were plenty of fragments of turrets, but no adult cicadas or their shells (shed skins).
You can see the hob rooting in Lynn’s photos:
Any impacts to cicada populations, like hog rooting, is interesting to people who study cicadas.
Good news!
Fortunately some cicadas survived, in the hog-plowed areas, and there was no impact in the areas where the hogs did not plow up the ground.
News from Lynn:
Today 10 days later (May 19, 2025) than first visit, completely different!
All previous locations still singing loudly by the 1000s, millions?
Greasy Creek drainage was also singing loudly!
In the plowed up areas, there remained no cicada skins and no evidence and broken mud towers.
BUT, away from the roads much of the forest was intact and apparently plenty made it up into the treetops and they are singing and courting mightily now.
So I wanted you to know the happy ending. Those hogs won a good cicada buffet, but Cicada Brood 14 won the season!
Here are some of Lynn’s photos. All photos in the post are copyright of Lynn Faust.
Okanagana monochroma, a newly described cicada, thrives in a serpentine ecosystem in Northern California.
Read about it in the paper: Smeds, E.A. & Chatfield-Taylor, W. (2025) A new species of Okanagana native to a unique serpentine ecosystem in Northern California (Hemiptera: Auchenorrhyncha: Cicadidae). Zootaxa, 5636 (3), 487–498.
Here is the abstract from the paper:
Okanagana monochroma sp. nov. is described from a unique and geographically isolated serpentine ecosystem in Northern California. The new species is diagnosed from other Okanagana Distant by a combination of morphological and bioacoustic characters. We provide a description of the calling song, habitat, and host plant associations of O. monochroma sp. nov., and present hypotheses for possible endemism models to explain its remarkably narrow geographic range, which may be the smallest of any North American cicada.
I wonder if the name monochroma refers to the fact that the cicada is almost entirely one color. Serpentine is rock that forms when ultramafic (high in magnesium & iron) magma metamorphosizes with sea water, typically at oceanic vents, sea mounts, and other volcanically active areas on ocean floors. When ocean floors are thrust above continents, we often end up with serpentine rock and soils on dry land. Serpentine rich soils are a challenge for plant life, and they usually lead to unique plants adapted to serpentine. I assume this cicada is adapted to one of these special plants.
A #newspecies of #Okanagana native to a unique serpentine ecosystem in Northern #California (#Hemiptera: #Auchenorrhyncha: #Cicadidae)#taxonomyhttps://t.co/Sef6H1eoXf pic.twitter.com/olqynbjMyn
— Zootaxa updates (@Zootaxa) May 18, 2025
Magicicada periodical cicadas often emerge earlier or later than expected. This phenomenon is called straggling, and the individual cicadas that emerged earlier or later are called stragglers. Magicicada are presumed to straggle for a number of reasons including subterranean overcrowding and the effects of urban heat islands on subterranean environments (a recent phenomenon). Evolutionarily speaking, it is a mechanism that allows them to break away from their original brood and form a new one. Right now on the homepage of the UCONN Cicada site they have a good story about how Brood XIV connects to Brood X, which connects to VI, which connects to II.
Stragglers, in the past, were observed and documented (MORRIS,J. G. 1870. Seventeen-year locust two years too late. Amer. Ent., 2: 304.) but it is much easier to do so today thanks to apps like iNaturalist, Cicada Safari, and mobile phones and social media in general.
So, where are we observing stragglers in 2025?
Down in the Baton Rouge area of Louisiana, Brood XXII is emerging 2 years early (iNaturalist Map). Brood XXII typically has a 13-year lifecycle.
There are many Brood X stragglers emerging in the Washington D.C. area (iNaturalist Map).
Brood I stragglers are appearing in the Roanoke, Virginia area emerging four years early. (iNaturalist map).
There are a handful of Brood X stragglers in the Princeton, NJ area. (iNaturalist Map).
And there are definitely more…
If you want to look for stragglers, online, you can use iNaturalist or the Cicada Safari app. Here is a map with all the Cicada Safari sightings on it.
And here’s a map that plots all the Broods, courtesy of Cicadas @ UCONN:
Two notes:
1) The general public does not like the term stragglers when applied to cicadas that emerge early, because straggling generally means to be late, not early. Marlatt referred to them as precursors (Marlatt, 1989). You can use that term if you like.
2) People called cicadas locusts in the recent past. Scientifically speaking and in modern times, a locust is a grasshopper. Cicadas and grasshoppers are very different insects, but they can emerge in large numbers and do some damage to plants (cicadas cause flagging on trees, while locusts eat everything), hence the confusion.
The Lesser Antilles Cicada aka Chalumalna martinesis is a cicada found in the Lesser Antilles islands, for certain in Saint Martin (see sightings on iNaturalist).
Cicada researcher Allen Sanborn has a new paper titled Redescription, illustration and higher taxonomy of the Lesser Antilles cicada Chalumalna martinesis Boulard, 2001 (Hemiptera: Cicadidae: Cicadettinae).
This paper is of particular interest as it places Chalumalna martinesis this cicada in the Trible Lamotialnini, which is the same Trible as Magicicada periodical cicadas found un the U.S.
From the Abstract:
The genus Chalumalna is reassigned to Lamotialnini Boulard, 1976 based on the presence of conjunctival claws on the aedeagus and the lack of a developed uncus. Brevialavenosa Sanborn, 2021 and Chrysolasia Moulds, 2003 are shown to be members of Lamotialnini as well, expanding the tribal distribution to include the Caribbean, South and Central America.