Giant Cicada sp. - Tibicen dorsatus

Tibicen pronotalis

Not T. dorsata, which has a row of large, white spots down the abdomen. The color suggests instead T. pronotalis, which was formerly known as T. marginalis (but this is a preoccupied name, which was replaced by T. walkeri, a name younger than that of pronotalis, and therefore a junior synonym).

… Andy Hamilton, 13 June, 2006 - 10:38am

I disagree

Andy

I have to disagree once again. The angle of the dorsal view of the specimen in question while admittedly obscure, is still enough of a view to say that there is indeed a set of spots all the way down the abdomen. I think that you are getting confused with the fact that what you think is light reflection from the sun, are indeed spots. They taper to a point to the 8th tergite of which is almost covered in pruinosity like the referenced T. dorsata in my posting.

Not to mention the color pattern on the mesonotum between these two specimens is identical. Both specimens have orange pronotal collars and both have orange pronotums.

Ahh, welcome to another cicada season full of lively debate in regards to the morphology and proper identification of my favorite insects!

… Gerry Bunker, 13 June, 2006 - 4:01pm

Gerry Bunker reports:

"I took this picture and blew it up in my graphics program and compared it to the existing properly identified T. dorsata which can be found here.
I selected identical points between the two specimens and drew different color lines between the two. In terms of color and size and spot patterns and wing color patterns they are identical. You can look at my example of the two which can be found here, and you will see that they are indeed the same species."

… john and jane balaban, 2 July, 2006 - 10:05am

Fine analysis. For my peace o

Fine analysis. For my peace of mind what about the orange bands that appear in my picture but not yours? Are those some kind of insterstital coloring that may or may not show depending on some inflation of the abdomen? Or is there another explanation? This has bugged me since the beginning of the discussion.

Thanks everybody, for all your work on this . . .

tg

… tony gallucci, 2 July, 2006 - 1:51pm

Orange bands

Ah, I was waiting for this question and you hit the nail right on the head Tony. This specimen is either about to call or was calling at the time the photo was taken or it could be a behavior that it exhibits to keep itself cool. Another example in the guide is this one here:

As you can see, cicadas can manipulate their abdomens according to the poster of this specimen, it was calling. BTW, this makes this speciment a male.

Gerry

… Gerry Bunker, 2 July, 2006 - 2:08pm

Tibicen dealbatus?

We could both be wrong ... there is another western species, T. dealbatus, which looks like T. dorsalis but has the head as wide as the pronotum, instead of narrower. From the angle of the shot it is hard to see how wide the head is.

… Andy Hamilton, 14 June, 2006 - 9:53am

Thanks again, in the learning

Thanks again, in the learning process on these guys. . .

tony g

… tony gallucci, 13 June, 2006 - 10:47am

Not magicicada

This is not Magicicada. Magicicadas definately have redish-orange eyes with orange wing veins and are generally black in appearance with black pronotums and black pronotal collars.

.

The above specimen clearly has an orange pronotal collar and pronotum along with an orange, black and white mesonotum. This specimen seems to key out to be T. dorsata.

… Gerry Bunker, 11 June, 2006 - 6:31pm

Thank you very much! tony

Thank you very much!

tony gallucci
ingram, kerr county, texas, usa
http://milkriver.blogspot.com

… tony gallucci, 11 June, 2006 - 8:59pm