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Greengrocer cicada

Cyclochila australasiae

Photo by MartinL
Published on Project Noah
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Field Notes

Description:

Solid green and very noisy

Habitat:

Brought into the house by our cat.

Notes:

Chirping is produced by vibrating the plates behind the back legs. These plates are shown in pic #2. The abdomen is inflated producing an echo chamber and amplifying the sound.

Reference Links:

Green Grocer Cicada (Cyclochila australasiae)

Species ID Suggestions

Comments (10)
MartinL
Notice that many modern insects such as this cicada have five eyes. Two compound eyes and three central simple eyes.
Mark Ridgway
That's great info and links. I had never sorted out the differences between those common names. It was in the genes all the time.
MartinL
This insect comes in three colors. Green has two color genes, blue and yellow. If the blue color is missing, we get a 'yellow monday' http://davesgarden.com/guides/bf/showimage/1470/#b but more rarely, the yellow gene missing produces the 'blue moon' http://australianmuseum.net.au/image/Blue-Moon-Cicada other colors such as the masked devil occur too http://davesgarden.com/guides/bf/showimage/5227/
Mark Ridgway
Have you seen many of these martin... http://www.projectnoah.org/spottings/10325365 ?
MartinL
Nice spotting Tamir. http://www.projectnoah.org/spottings/8774491 The sound is produced by vibration of the two plates against the abdomen pic #2. The abdomen is hollow and when inflated, the air pressure amplifies and throws the sound.
MartinL
Yes there's a few of them now. they seem to know when the hot days are about to come. This one appeared on the last very hot day.
HemaShah
Very interesting!My cat is not at all interested in insects.
Mark Ridgway
Excellent martin - just noticed it's sap sucker? tucked down it's front between it's legs. Haven't heard many of these around yet. Last year was a bird feast though. When there's hundreds of them the sound comes in synchronised 'waves'. Makes hot days very special in Victoria.
MartinL
Thank you. You can easily notice on this large insect that they have three extra central eyes:)
UmapornSarasat
nice one..here on Samui island as well..it very noisy on Jan till May.

Spotted for Missions

Mission
WILD Cities: Urban Biodiversity

Tags

Photographed
PublishedDecember 1, 2011

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