- This page contains pictures and information about Cicadas
in family Cicadidae that we found in the Brisbane area, Queensland, Australia.
-
 - Double Drummer Cicada last molting - the largest cicada in Australia,
making loudest sound in the insect world.
Cicadas are well known because their 'song' is the back ground
noise here during summer. Their empty shells are often seen on tree trunks and
fences. The young nymphs live underground. They are sap suckers feed by sucking
on roots of trees.
They live underground from one to many years. Mature nymphs dig tunnels to
surface waiting to become adults. After they have the
final moulting and leave those empty shells, they come up from soil. Adults live for one to several weeks.
All species of cicada adults sing. This is the male who sing the
song to attract females. They make the sound by ribbed a pair of membranes,
or tymbals, located at the base of abdomen. The sound is amplified
by resonating in the chamber which is the hollow part of the abdomen. Each species have different 'songs'
patterns.
More information about cicada in general can be found in this Cicada
Biology page.
All living cicadas, except the two species in Tettigarctidae,
belong to this family Cicadidae.
Australian cicadas are in two subfamilies of the Cicadidae, they are the Cicadinae
and the Tibicininae. Those we found in Brisbane are listed as
follows.
Classification :
Large Cicadas - subfamily Cicadinae
- This subfamily Cicadinae
includes mostly large cicada species.
-
Small Cicadas - subfamily Tibicininae
This subfamily Tibicininae includes mostly small to medium size cicada species.
- Reference:
- 1. Insects
of Australia, CSIRO, Division of Entomology, Melbourne University
Press, 2nd Edition 1991, pp 465.
- 2. Identification
Keys and Checklists for the leafhoppers, planthoppers and their
relatives occurring in Australia and New Zealand (Hemiptera:
Auchenorrhyncha). Fletcher, M.J. and
Larivière, M.-C. (2009 and updates).
- 3. Family
CICADIDAE - Australian Biological Resources Study, Department of the Environment and
Heritage.
- 4. Australian Cicadas - Moulds MS (1990). New South Wales University Press, NSW. Australia.
- 5. Cicadas – our Summer
Singers - Geoff Monteith, Queensland Museum, leaflet 0036, September 2000.
- 6. Northern
Territory Insects, A Comprehensive Guide CD - Graham Brown, 2009.
- 7. An appraisal of the higher classification of cicadas (Hemiptera:
Cicadoidea) with special reference to the Australian fauna - Moulds, M.S. (2005) Records of the Australian Museum 57(3): 375-446.
- 8. The cicadas of central eastern Australia - L. W. Popple, Zoology and Entomology, the University of Queensland, Australia, 2006.
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