Category: Researchers

Cicada researchers associated with academic institutions.

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Massospora Matt Kasson

Cicada Fungi Research

Magicicada septendecim with Massosporan fungus found at the Edison Memorial Tower Park in Edison NJ
A “Salt-Shaker of Death”. (Deadly for the cicada, not humans.)

Many types of fungi will eat cicadas, but one type — the Massospora — specifically infests and destroys cicada genitalia. Specifically, Massospora cicadina attacks Magicicada cicadas, and Massospora levispora attacks Okanagana rimosa. According to the website MycoBank Database, there’s at least 19 species of Massospora. By the names of some, you can guess which cicada it infects; Massospora diceroproctae likely infects Diceroprocta cicadas.

It’s not certain, but there are sure to be many more species of Massospora fungi — if not one for each species, perhaps approximately one for each genus. Considering that Massospora infects cicadas all around the world, it’s fair to assume that Massospora has been infecting cicadas for many millions of years.

At West Virginia University, Matt Kasson & his team are studying Massospora, and are looking for samples of cicadas with these infections. Matt regularly Tweets photos and finding such as this one of spores from a Platypedia cicada:

If you have some samples of such cicadas and are willing to part with them, let Matt know.

Categories
Australia Cicadettini Clinopsalta L. W. Popple Papers and Documents

New species of Clinopsalta cicadas

Lindsay Popple announced on Twitter that two new species of Clinopsalta cicadas have been described.

Links:

Sounds: Calling songs of Clinopsalta cicadas.

Journal Article: TWO NEW SPECIES OF CLINOPSALTA MOULDS (HEMIPTERA: CICADIDAE) AND ADDITIONAL DISTRIBUTION RECORDS FOR CLINOPSALTA ADELAIDA (ASHTON), WITH NOTES ON THEIR DISTINCTIVE CALLING SONGS. Popple and Emery, 2017. Rec. Aust. Mus. 69(4): 237—256

Abstract from the journal article:

Two new species are described in the genus Clinopsalta Moulds. Clinopsalta autumna sp. nov. exhibits a warm temperate distribution from south-east Queensland south to Goulburn and Nerriga in eastern New South Wales. Clinopsalta semilunata sp. nov. has a patchy distribution in southern Queensland from Binjour Plateau west to near Miles, south to Yelarbon State Forest and Durikai State Forest, both near Inglewood. In addition to the descriptions of these new species, further distribution records are provided for C. adelaida (Ashton), which extend its distribution from south-eastern South Australia and northern Victoria to inland central and northern New South Wales. The species of Clinopsalta are small—medium sized cicadas (< 20 mm body length) with distinctive calling songs of an intermediate frequency (c. 6 to 18 kHz). The temporal structures of the calling songs follow a similar pattern in each species, comprising an introductory rattle followed by a series of clicking phrases. The call is characteristically accompanied with bouts of prominent wing-snapping, except in one species (C. semilunata sp. nov.).

Categories
Cicadettana David Marshall Kathy Hill Papers and Documents

A new genus for North American Cicadetta species: Cicadettana

A photo of a Cicadettana calliope calliope:
Cicadettana calliope photo taken by Paul Krombholz

New changes to the classification of the North American cicadas belonging to the genus Cicadetta have been published. The North American Cicadetta were found to be unrelated to the European Cicadetta (including the type species C. montana), so a new genus was needed. The new genus is Cicadettana. Research & paper by David Marshall and Kathy Hill.

Zootaxa page for the paper.

The generic classification of cicadas within the globally distributed tribe Cicadettini (Hemiptera: Cicadidae) has been challenging due to their often conservative morphology. A recent molecular analysis has indicated that the six North American taxa currently classified in Cicadetta are unrelated to the European type species of Cicadetta, C. montana Scopoli. Here we identify a set of diagnostic morphological characters for a new genus, which we distinguish from its closest relatives in Eurasia and Australasia.

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David Marshall Kathy Hill Neotibicen Papers and Documents U.S.A.

Neotibicen similaris apalachicola, a new cicada subspecies

A new subspecies of the Similar Dog-Day Cicada has been described in the paper A new Neotibicen cicada subspecies (Hemiptera: Cicadidae) from the southeastern USA forms hybrid zones with a widespread relative despite a divergent male calling song by David C. Marshall and Kathy B. R. Hill (Zootaxa, Vol 4272, No 4). The cicada is named Neotibicen similaris apalachicola.

This cicada lives in Florida, Georgia & Alabama, and hybridizes with the other Similar Dog-Day Cicada sub-speces, Neotibicen similaris similaris. The document is available on biotaxa.org.

A morphologically cryptic subspecies of Neotibicen similaris (Smith and Grossbeck) is described from forests of the Apalachicola region of the southeastern United States. Although the new form exhibits a highly distinctive male calling song, it hybridizes extensively where it meets populations of the nominate subspecies in parapatry, by which it is nearly surrounded. This is the first reported example of hybridization between North American nonperiodical cicadas. Acoustic and morphological characters are added to the original description of the nominate subspecies, and illustrations of complex hybrid song phenotypes are presented. The biogeography of N. similaris is discussed in light of historical changes in forest composition on the southeastern Coastal Plain.

You will find song samples and maps on the Insect Singers website.

I think this is an image of the new cicada:

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Berberigetta Cicadettini Vera L. Nunes Video

New Cicada: Berberigetta dimelodica

Thanks to Vera L. Nunes for letting us know about a newly described/discovered cicada named Berberigetta dimelodica.

Berberigetta is also a new genus, belonging to the Tribe Cicadettini.

See and listen to it in this YouTube video:

The paper than describes the species is:

Gonçalo João Costa, Vera L. Nunes, Eduardo Marabuto, Raquel Mendes, Telma G. Laurentino, José Alberto Quartau, Octávio S. Paulo, Paula Cristina Simões. 2017. Morphology, songs and genetics identify two new cicada species from Morocco: Tettigettalna afroamissa sp. nov. and Berberigetta dimelodica gen. nov. & sp. nov. (Hemiptera: Cicadettini). Zootaxa. Vol 4237, No 3.

Link to the Zootaxa page for the document.

And here’s a quote of the Abstract:

Morocco has been the subject of very few expeditions on the last century with the objective of studying small cicadas. In the summer of 2014 an expedition was carried out to Morocco to update our knowledge with acoustic recordings and genetic data of these poorly known species. We describe here two new small-sized cicadas that could not be directly assigned to any species of North African cicadas: Tettigettalna afroamissa sp. nov. and Berberigetta dimelodica gen. nov. & sp. nov. In respect to T. afroamissa it is the first species of the genus to be found outside Europe and we frame this taxon within the evolutionary history of the genus. Acoustic analysis of this species allows us to confidently separate T. afroamissa from its congeners. With B. dimelodica, a small species showing a remarkable calling song characterized by an abrupt frequency modulation, a new genus had to be erected. Bayesian inference and maximum likelihood phylogenetic analyses with DNA-barcode sequences of Cytochrome C Oxidase 1 support the monophyly of both species, their distinctness and revealed genetic structure within B. dimelodica. Alongside the descriptions we also provide GPS coordinates of collection points, distributions and habitat preferences.

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Mike Quinn Quesada

Quesada gigas out in Texas

Update: Mike’s website Giant Cicada / Chicharra Grande has records of the early calling. 3 to 4 months early!

Mike Quinn, @EntoMike on Twitter, reported on February 22nd that Quesada gigas have been singing in Texas.

Listen to their song:


Source: ©Insect Singers | Species: Q. gigas

Quesada gigas from Brazil, Photo by Leonardo Milhomem
Photo credit: Photo by Leonardo Milhomem.

More information about Quesada gigas.

Categories
Jeffrey A. Cole Megatibicen Tibicen

New species of Megatibicen: Megatibicen harenosus

A new species of Megatibicen, named Megatibicen harenosus sp. n., has been described by Jeffrey A. Cole. It lives in the Mescalero-Monahans shinnery sands areas of New Mexico and Texas. It is very similar to Megatibicen (Neotibicen, Tibicen) tremulus, which itself looks a lot like dorsatus and dealbatus.

Here’s a link to the announcement of the paper. This is the abstract:

Megatibicen harenosus sp. n. is described from the Mescalero-Monahans shinnery sands of New Mexico and Texas, U.S.A. The new species is diagnosed from similar species, especially M. tremulus which it resembles closely, by male genital morphology, color pattern, calling song, and ecology. Seven characters from the male calling song are described from analysis of field recordings, of which all four temporal song characters are significantly different from M. tremulus. With one of the most southwestern distribution of any Megatibicen species, M. harenosus is a new addition to the rich, endemic, and understudied Mescalero-Monahans shinnery sands biota. The possibility that M. harenosus and M. tremulus are sister species is raised. The ecological, biological, and evolutionary species concepts support species status for M. harenosus, and an hypothesis of peripatric speciation in peripheral isolation is advanced.

There is a sample of this cicada’s song on the Insect Singers website. Check it out.

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Lyristes Megatibicen Neotibicen Tibicen Young June Lee

Gigatibicen, Ameritibicen, Paratibicen

Gigatibicen
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
Categories
Australia Max Moulds

Twenty-two new species of cicada identified in Australia

A new paper was published that describes five (5) new cicada genera and twenty-two (22) species of cicadas in Australia.

The paper is Systematics and Phylogeny of the Australian Cicada Genus Pauropsalta Goding and Froggatt, 1904 and Allied Genera (Hemiptera: Cicadidae: Cicadettini), the authors are Christopher L. Owen and M. S. Moulds, and it was published by The Australian Museum.

You can download it from this page. The document is 83 pages long, and contains 6 color pages of the cicadas.

The new genera are:

  1. Atrapsalta n.gen. Includes 9 species.
  2. Haemopsalta n.gen. Includes 4 species.
  3. Falcatpsalta n.gen. Includes 1 species.
  4. Relictapsalta n.gen. Includes 1 species.
  5. Popplepsalta n.gen. Includes 12 species. Note that this genera is named for cicada researcher Lindsay Popple.

The new species are:

  1. Pauropsalta accola n.sp.
  2. Pauropsalta adelphe n.sp.
  3. Pauropsalta agasta n.sp.
  4. Pauropsalta confinis n. sp.
  5. Pauropsalta conflua n.sp.
  6. Pauropsalta contigua n.sp.
  7. Pauropsalta ewarti n.sp.
  8. Pauropsalta herveyensis n.sp.
  9. Pauropsalta juncta n.sp.
  10. Pauropsalta katherina n.sp. Note, this name is in honor of cicada researcher Kathy Hill.
  11. Pauropsalta kriki n.sp.
  12. Pauropsalta similis n.sp.
  13. Pauropsalta sinavilla n.sp.
  14. Atrapsalta n.gen. emmotti n.sp. Note, this name is in honor of naturalist Angus Emmott (thx Henry Cook)
  15. Atrapsalta n.gen. furcilla n.sp.
  16. Atrapsalta n.gen. vinea n.sp.
  17. Haemopsalta n.gen. flammeata n.sp.
  18. Haemopsalta n.gen. georgina n.sp.
  19. Palapsalta Moulds, 2012 palaga n.sp.
  20. Palapsalta Moulds, 2012 serpens n.sp.
  21. Popplepsalta n.gen. aeroides n.sp.
  22. Uradolichos Moulds, 2012 rotunda n.sp.

The paper was announced on Twitter by Lindsay Popple on Twitter:

Categories
Australia Books Nathan Emery

New Cicada Photo Guide by Nathan Emery

Update 2: Listen to an ABC radio interview with Nathan.

Update: Nathan’s books are back from the press. Buy it online, or contact him via Twitter to get yours:

Nature photographer and cicada researcher Nathan Emery is working on a new book called “A Photo Guide to Common Cicadas of the Greater Sydney Region“. It is due out at the end of October, 2016.