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Thopha sessiliba is a cicada found in Australia. It is also known as the Northern Double Drummer.
Photo by Kees Green:
Scientific classification:
Family: Cicadidae
Subfamily: Cicadinae
Tribe: Thophini
Genus: Thopha
Species: Thopha sessiliba Distant, 1892
For more information about this cicada, visit A web guide toThe cicadas of Australia by L. W. Popple.
Thopha sessiliba Distant, 1892 is found in northern Austalia and is commonly known as the Northern Double Drummer. Like other members of the Thophini tribe, T. sessiliba has prominent sack-like tymbal covers, from which they get their common name “drummers”.
Scientific classification:
Family: Cicadidae
Subfamily: Cicadinae
Tribe: Thophini
Genus: Thopha
Species: Thopha sessiliba Distant, 1892
Thopha genus description by W. L. Distant:
Characters. — Head short, broad, equal in width to apex of pronotum; eyes more or less pedunculated, prominent; ocelli four times more distant from eyes than from each other; apex of clavus acuminate; front destitute of a longitudinal sulcus; pronotum with the lateral margins almost truncate or slightly convex, widened forwardly; tegmina vitreous, basal area not twice longer than broad, interior ulnar area broadened towards apex; ulnar veins distant at base; wings vitreous, with six apical areas; opercula short, transverse; tympanal coverings very strongly developed and sac-like, projecting beyond the lateral abdominal margins in male.