For some reason I associate “Giga” with “Gigabytes” and storage media like Flash drives, which explains this joke image.
Over the past two years there have been quite a few updates to the genera of the cicadas that were organized under the Tibicen genus earlier this decade.
The most recent paper by Young June Lee introduces the genera Gigatibicen, Ameritibicen, and Paratibicen 1. Earlier this year there was a paper by Allen Sanborn and Maxine Heath that introduced the genus Megatibicen 3, and in 2015 there was a paper by Kathy Hill and others that introduced Neotibicen and Hadoa 2.
See the end of the article for links to these papers, and related articles on CicadaMania.com.
The table below shows the names/synonyms (sub species have been removed to keep the table compact):
| (Tibicen circa 2014) | Hill (2015)2 | Sanborn, Heath (2016)3 | Lee (2016)1 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tibicen auletes | Neotibicen auletes | Megatibicen auletes | Gigatibicen auletes |
| Tibicen auriferus | Neotibicen auriferus | no change | no change |
| Tibicen canicularis | Neotibicen canicularis | no change | no change |
| Tibicen cultriformis | Neotibicen cultriformis | Megatibicen cultriformis | Ameritibicen cultriformis |
| Tibicen davisi davisi | Neotibicen davisi | no change | no change |
| Tibicen dealbatus | Neotibicen dealbatus | Megatibicen dealbatus | Ameritibicen dealbatus |
| Tibicen dorsatus | Neotibicen dorsatus | Megatibicen dorsatus | Ameritibicen dorsatus |
| Tibicen figuratus | Neotibicen figuratus | Megatibicen figuratus | Ameritibicen figuratus |
| Tibicen latifasciatus | Neotibicen latifasciatus | no change | no change |
| Tibicen linnei | Neotibicen linnei | no change | no change |
| Tibicen lyricen engelhardti | Neotibicen lyricen | no change | no change |
| Tibicen pronotalis pronotalis | Neotibicen pronotalis | Megatibicen pronotalis | Ameritibicen pronotalis |
| Tibicen pruinosus fulvus | Neotibicen pruinosus | no change | no change |
| Tibicen resh | Neotibicen resh | Megatibicen resh | Gigatibicen resh |
| Tibicen resonans | Neotibicen resonans | Megatibicen resonans | Gigatibicen resonans |
| Tibicen robinsonianus | Neotibicen robinsonianus | no change | no change |
| Tibicen similaris | Neotibicen similaris | no change | Paratibicen similaris |
| Tibicen superbus | Neotibicen superbus | no change | no change |
| Tibicen tibicen australis | Neotibicen tibicen | no change | no change |
| Tibicen tremulus | Neotibicen tremulus | Megatibicen tremulus | Ameritibicen tremulus |
| Tibicen winnemanna | Neotibicen winnemanna | no change | no change |
| Tibicen bifidus | Hadoa bifida | no change | no change |
| Tibicen chiricahua | Hadoa chiricahua | no change | no change |
| Tibicen duryi | Hadoa duryi | no change | no change |
| Tibicen inauditus | Hadoa inaudita | no change | no change |
| Tibicen longioperculus | Hadoa longiopercula | no change | no change |
| Tibicen neomexicensis | Hadoa neomexicensis | no change | no change |
| Tibicen parallelus | Hadoa parallela | no change | no change |
| Tibicen simplex | Hadoa simplex | no change | no change |
| Tibicen texanus | Hadoa texana | no change | no change |
| Tibicen townsendii | Hadoa townsendii | no change | no change |
- 1 Lee, Y.J. 2016. Description of three new genera, Paratibicen, Gigatibicen, and Ameritibicen, of Cryptotympanini (Hemiptera: Cicadidae) and a key to their species Journal of Asia-Pacific Biodiversity, Volume 9, Issue 4, 1 December 2016, Pages 448—454. Link to Paper.
- 2 Hill, et al. 2015. 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), Zootaxa, Volume 3985, Issue 2, Pages 219—251. Link to Paper
- 3 Sanborn A.F., Heath, M.S. 2016. Megatibicen n. gen., a new North American cicada genus (Hemiptera: Cicadidae: Cicadinae: Cryptotympanini), Zootaxa, Volume 4168, Issue 3. Link to Paper
- What is Megatibicen?!
- Major Changes to the Tibicen genera
- Catalogue of the Cicadoidea by Allen F Sanborn has the complete history of names/synonyms of these species and genera pre 2014.
We await clarification from the ümpire’s decision”!!