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Home » Forums » Taxonomy Proposals

Tibicen question

Not sure this is necessarily suited for the Taxonomy Proposals forum, but it didn't seem quite right for the Requests for Additional Guide Pages forum, either. I was just curious about common names for Tibicen auletes and Tibicen pruinosa. The Taxonomy page for Tibicen here calls T. auletes the Scissor-grinder, and T. pruinosa the Silver-Bellied Cicada. However, the SINA site here calls T. auletes the Northern Dusk-singing Cicada, and T. pruinosa the Scissor-grinder. I haven't read the literature describing these as new species, nor any more current literature (yet, anyway), as I'm still up to my eyeballs in salamander papers to read. Eventually, though, I'm hoping to get to the cicada literature as "fun" reading...I'm really starting to get into these guys a lot, particularly Tibicen. Are both sets of these common names "correct"? I just didn't know if there were any "standard" common names proposed for cicadas such as has been done for other groups like odes and leps. Anyhoo, I was just wondering.
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Contributed by J.R. Jones on 30 August, 2007 - 5:18pm

That's the problem
with common names that refer to more than one species.

The place to look for alternate names on BugGuide is the Info page for that species. Note that the page for Tibicen auletes lists Northern Dusk-singing Cicada in the Other Common Names section, and the page for T. pruinosa lists 3 other names but not Scissor-grinder.

To avoid confusion, it's probably better not to use "scissor-grinder" or "dog-day" cicada at all...
… Robin McLeod, 30 August, 2007 - 8:05pm login or register to post comments

 
Ah,
guess I should've checked the Info pages first. Doh! Yeah, that's exactly why I'm not really a fan of common names, especially with a lot of wildflowers that have the same name, but are sometimes in completely different families!
… J.R. Jones, 30 August, 2007 - 9:24pm login or register to post comments

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