Cicada Hunting in Lakewood, NJ

 TIBICEN AULETES

This season has been tough to locate Tibicen auletes on Long Island, for me anyhow, because I am new at learning the calls and signs of a cicada emergences. In an effort to find some of this species I went with a friend, Elias Bonaros, to Lakewood, NJ to a location known for having the T. auletes. While driving down we did hear T. auletes calling along the highway in a few locations. We marked the locations on our maps for future data points. 

Tibicen auletes nymph walking up an Oak Tree to eclose

After arriving in  Lakewood and doing a lot of searching we finally came upon some T. auletes exuviae under an Oak Tree along the tree line in front of a mall. Aside from those few shells not much evidence of any cicada in this area. The one exciting part of the whole trip was Elias finding a T. auletes nymph climbing up an Oak Tree. It was the first time him and I had seen a nymph of the T. auletes climbing a tree to eclose! They can climb fifty feet up a tree to emerge so we were very lucky to see it before it was out of sight or reach. 

At another location in Lakewood, NJ, we looked for Tibicen canicularis among the pine trees. It  was a lot easier to find T. canicularis exuviae and finally an eclosing nymph.

OTHER SIGHTINGS

In addition to Cicada hunting we always investigate any other wildlife we come across and often photograph them or at least most of the time I do! Below are some of the other animals and insects we ran across in Lakewood, NJ.

Polyphemus Silk Moth female that turned out to be pregnant and laid 60 eggs!

Strange poses from a Praying Mantis

Another strange pose! Could this be where martial arts moves comes from?

Fowler's Toad

Cicada's on the Web

CICADA WEBSITES AND RESOURCES

Tibicen tibicen

Websites

Cicada Mania - The oldest and best-known general website for cicada enthusiasts. Facts about cicada including 13 and 17 year broods, annual and international cicada species.

Magicicada - established to solicit and organize distribution records for periodical cicada broods from the public.Information about period cicada and cicada broods

Cicada Central - established as a clearinghouse for research on world Cicadidae.This site is designed to be a clearinghouse for scientific information about cicadas. 

Masschusettes Cicada - extensive site on New England cicadas, collecting techniques, etc.Cicada biology and distribution, behaviors and systematics. Basically anything pertaining to the life cycle of cicadas that have been observed by the site author or information that has been reported or learned through established literature.

Tibicen linnei

Australian Museum: Cicadas - The drone of cicadas is one of Sydney's most recognizable sounds of summer. Cicadas are the loudest insects in the world and there are more than 200 species in Australia.

Periodical Cicada Page - University of Michigan's Museum of Zoology: Insect Division

 

Cicada in Illinois - University of Illinois Extension

 

Cicada's of the Mid-Atlantic - Help us track and map out the occurrence of the 17 year Brood I Periodical Cicada in the Mid Atlantic area.

Cicada of Florida - University of Florida Department of Entomology

 

Resources

Insect Singers - Song recordings and information on acoustically signaling insects, especially cicadas of the United States and Canada.

Songs of Insects – a companion website for a book of the same name, contains an online identification guide for songs.

How Stuff Works: Cicadas - How Stuff Works is the award-winning source of credible, unbiased, and easy-to-understand explanations of how the world actually works.

Encyclopedia Britannica: cicada - Articles from Britannica encyclopedias for elementary and high school students.

Wikipedia: Cicada - An online free encyclopedia. 

National Geographic: Cicadas - Learn all you wanted to know about cicadas with pictures, videos, photos and facts. 

For Kids

Origami Cicada -  Make your own Origami Cicada.

Singing Cicada Craft - Create your own Singing Cicada Craft. 

Seventeen Uses for a Dead Cicada - As the sound and the flurry fade, we're left with dead bugs. Here are 17 things to do with them. 

Chrocheron Park, Bayside, NY August 1, 2012

Went to see a very large Cicada Killer colony in Chrocheron Park to find out what kind of Cicada these giant wasps were finding and flying back to their ground burrows. I also hoped to find some Cicada nymphs around dusk starting to  make their way up the tree trunks to emerge from their shells and transform into an adult Cicada during the night. 

Finally, checked Golden Pond to see what Dragonflies and Damselflies were flying and setting up territories there. Also found other inhabitants along the way in my search for Cicada nymphs.

LINNE'S CICADA (Tibicen linnei) Thursday, August 2, 2012

LINNE'S CICADA (Tibicen linnei) Friday, August 3, 2012

LINNE'S CICADA (Tibicen linnei) Saturday, August 4, 2012

SWAMP CICADA (Tibicen tibicen) (T. chloromera) Thursday, August 2, 2012

SWAMP CICADA (Tibicen tibicen) Friday, August 3, 2012

SWAMP CICADA (Tibicen tibicen) Saturday, August 4, 2012

Raising a Cicada Nymph

I was given a Cicada Nymph which was thought to be a Periodic Cicada because of the red eyes. I was emailed some photos of this red-eyed Tibicen and thought it worth the trip a few towns over to pick it up. I would try to raise it until it eclosed. I took a series of photos to document the change from nymph to adult. On the second day after I received the nymph I realized its eyes had become dark. What happened to the red eyes?

I found out at a later date that some cicada have red eyes while living underground as nymphs but their eyes turn dark before emerging to eclose. This is something I never knew. 

After taking care of the nymph for two weeks it decided it was time to eclose. I provided some vertical sticks for the cicada to use for eclosion. I noticed one evening the cicada was wandering around the tank and had started to climb up on some wood I provided. I noticed the cicada had started eclosing with the first split in its shell. The cicada stayed at this stage for some time and I began to wonder "how long does this take"? Since this was the first time I had an experience with a cicada nymph I was kind of clueless. I found out later from a friend that the whole process should be done in an hour and two hours had already passed. Unfortunately the nymph, for what ever reason, died during the process and could not emerge from its shell...