Bermuda Singer (Tibicen bermudiana)

Bermuda Singer (Tibicen bermudiana) female & male

  

I had the honor of photographing the Tibicen bermudiana collected by William T. Davis. This collection of the Bermuda Singers is housed at the Staten Island Museum. Due to the loss of the Bermuda Cedar and the introduction of the Kiskadee the last cicada was heard in the 1990's and is now believed to be extinct.

The Bermuda Cicada, also known as the Bermuda singer and Bermuda Scissor-Grindor, is an endemic insect that was once very common on the Bermuda Islands.  Adult cicadas are quite large, ranging between 1-2 inches long, dark in color, have large eyes and 4 long, transparent wings. The immature stage of the Bermuda Singer was associated with the Bermuda Cedar which was devastated by an introduced scale insect, Carulaspis minima, in the late 1940's to early 1950's. T. bermudiana is considered endemic but is closely related to Tibicen Lyricin of the eastern United States and southern Canada. Song recordings of each species are distinct though similar.

Bermuda Singer (Tibicen bermudiana) male

Bermuda Singer (Tibicen bermudiana) female

REFERENCES and Other Sources

Verrill, A. E. (1902). The Bermuda Islands: An account of their scenery, climate, productions, physiology, natural history and geology, with sketches of their discovery and early history and changes in their flora and fauna due to man. Trans. Conn. Acad. Sci. 9: 1-548.
Wilson, Michael R. and Hilburn, Daniel J. (1991). Annotated List of the Auchenorrhynchous Homoptera (Insecta) of Bermuda. Ann. Entomol. Soc. Am. 84(4): 415-416. <http://ag.udel.edu/delpha/4737.pdf> June 11, 2013

Government of Bermuda: Department of Conservation Services: Bermuda Cicada (Tibicen bermudiana) <http://www.conservation.bm/bermuda-cicada/> June 11, 2013