Cicada Hunt!

Try to Solve This Mystery:

What species of cicadas did we find?

Our town is less than a hundred miles
from Michigan, so we went to the
Cicadas of Michigan Website to try to
find our species of cicadas. This Website
has pictures and sounds for ten different
species of cicadas, including six species
of annual cicadas (genus Tibicen).

The text warned us that the colors in the
photos weren't always accurate (especially
green), but we hoped we could find good
matches for our two types ("W" and "No-W").

Based on patterns, we guessed that our
"W" type cicada may be Tibicen canicularis:

"W" type cicada

Then we went to the Great Plains Nature
Center's Dog Day Cicada Web page. The
cicada pictured at the top of that page
looked a lot like our "W" type cicadas, but
they called their species Tibicen pruinosa.
Now we're not sure what to think!

We looked hard on several Websites, but
we didn't find any good matches for our
"No-W" cicada:

"No-W" type cicada

Maybe we're in over our heads when
we try to identify species. It may take
a close look at a whole bunch of
features -- including the song -- to
identify species of cicadas.

It looks like we're left with
another cicada mystery!

What do you think?
E-mail us at Cicadas@SaltTheSandbox.org

Here are some Web sites that we used to research this question:

Cicadas of Michigan Website:
< http://insects.ummz.lsa.umich.edu/fauna/michigan_cicadas/Michigan/Index.html >

   Great Plains Nature Center's Dog Day Cicada
    Website (they're located in Wichita, Kansas):
   < http://www.gpnc.org/dogday.htm >

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This page was created on September 4, 2000, and it was last updated on September 16, 2000.