An article in the Sydney Morning Herald describing Australian cicadas.[4]
Related Research Articles
Cicadidae, the true cicadas, is the largest family of cicadas, with more than 3,200 species worldwide. The oldest known definitive fossils are from the Paleocene, a nymph from the Cretaceous Burmese amber has been attributed to the family, but could also belong to the Tettigarctidae.
The Cicadinae are a subfamily of cicadas, containing the translucent cicadas. They are robust cicadas and many have gaudy colors, but they generally lack the butterfly-like opaque wing markings found in many species of the related Tibiceninae.
Thopha saccata, the double drummer, is the largest Australian species of cicada and reputedly the loudest insect in the world. Documented by the Danish zoologist Johan Christian Fabricius in 1803, it was the first described and named cicada native to Australia. Its common name comes from the large dark red-brown sac-like pockets that the adult male has on each side of its abdomen—the "double drums"—that are used to amplify the sound it produces.
Psaltoda moerens, commonly known as the redeye, is an Australian species of cicada. It is distributed through the south-east of Australia, from southern Queensland to South Australia, as well as Tasmania. Populations can vary greatly between years; one year they may be present in large numbers and the next they may be entirely absent. They feed primarily on eucalyptus but also on Angophora trees. As they feed on tree sap they expel small droplets of clear waste fluid. When numbers are high, this can form a constant stream.
Psaltoda plaga is a species of cicada native to eastern Australia, from Maryborough in central Queensland to Bega in southern New South Wales. Adult cicadas appear over the summer and inhabit forested areas near bodies of water. The predominantly black form from the Sydney and Central Coast regions is commonly known as the black prince, while the term silver knight is used for the species as a whole.
Psaltoda is a genus of cicada found in eastern Australia. Originally described by Carl Stål, the type species is Psaltoda moerens known as the redeye, and P. plaga is a well-known species from eastern Australia, known as the black prince. Fifteen species are recognised. Relationships of the species with each other remains unclear.
Cryptotympanini is a tribe of cicadas in the family Cicadidae. They are found in the Nearctic, Palearctic, Indomalaya, Oceania, and Afrotropics.
Tryella is a genus of 14 species of cicada found in Australia and New Guinea. For many years, the members were classified in the genus Abricta. However, recent review of the genus has shown it to be a disparate group of species, and the Australian members moved to other genera. S.M. Moulds conducted a morphological analysis of the genus and found the cicadas split naturally into clades according to biogeographical region. Of the 15 Australian species, the floury baker was the earliest offshoot. Unpublished data confirmed it was quite genetically distant from the other 14 species and so it was classified in a new monotypic genus Aleeta, while the others were placed in the genus Tryella. The genus name is derived from the Ancient Greek tryelis "ladle" and relates to the ladle-shaped uncal lobes of the species in the genus.
Macrotristria is a genus of cicada in the cryptotympanini tribe of the Cicadinae subfamily. Twenty five species are listed in the Atlas of Living Australia.
Diceroprocta is a genus of scrub cicadas in the family Cicadidae. There are at least 60 described species in Diceroprocta.
Punia is a genus of cicadas in the family Cicadidae endemic to Australia. Members of the genus are called grass pygmies. There are currently five described species in Punia. They are found in Western Australia, the Northern Territory and Queensland. The genus was considered to be a monotypic genus only containing P. minima until the 2020 description of four congeners.
Tamasa is a genus of cicadas in the family Cicadidae. There are at least four described species in Tamasa.
Chlorocystini is a tribe of cicadas in the family Cicadidae. There are at least 20 genera and 170 described species in Chlorocystini.
Yoyetta is a genus of cicadas in the family Cicadidae. The genus was erected in 2012 to accommodate nine Australian species previously assigned to the genus Cicadetta.
Atrapsalta is a genus of cicadas belonging to the family Cicadidae.
Pauropsalta is a genus of cicadas belonging to the family Cicadidae, first described in 1904 by Frederic Webster Goding and Walter Wilson Froggatt.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
