Cicadatra platyptera Fieber, 1876

Trilar, Tomi, Gjonov, Ilia & Gogala, Matija, 2020, Checklist and provisional atlas of singing cicadas (Hemiptera: Cicadidae) of Bulgaria, based on bioacoustics, Biodiversity Data Journal 8, pp. 54424-54424 : 54424

Cicadatra platyptera Fieber, 1876

Distribution

General distribution: Southern Europe: Greece, North Macedonia; Middle East: Iran, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, Syria, Turkey (summarised by Duffels and van der Laan 1985 and Sanborn 2014).

The citation of the distribution in Italy ( Lodos and Kalkandelen 1981, Mozaffarian and Sanborn 2010) is most likely a mistake, since the species was not found in recent bioacoustic fieldwork (Thomas Hertach, personal communication).

Distribution in Bulgaria: Cicadatra platyptera was found for the first time in Bulgaria at seven localities in eastern Danubian Plane, Upper Thracian Plain and Tundzha-Burgas Valley (Fig. 28 ) with an altitude distribution between 60 and 194 m (Fig. 29 ).

Notes

Acoustic behaviour: In Cicadatra platyptera three types of songs are registered: calling song, courtship song and alarm song (rivalry song or distress call) ( Boulard 1995, Gogala et al. 2005, Mol et al. 2013).

Calling song (Fig. 30 ) sometimes begins with irregular echemes of 5-15 ms duration, followed a long pattern of many minutes of regular repetition of echemes (duration 122.7 (50-188) ms) and interecheme intervals (duration 91.2 (40-213) ms), generated by the tymbal ( Boulard 1995, Gogala et al. 2005, Mol et al. 2013). The calling song is similar to the closely-related species Cicadatra atra , but the repetition rate in Cicadatra platyptera is almost twice as high ( Gogala et al. 2005, Mol et al. 2013). If the calling song in Cicadatra platyptera follows the courtship song, the echeme duration is 133 (75-277) ms and the duration of interecheme interval is 80 (36-212) ms ( Mol et al. 2013). The frequency range is from 6.2 to 11.9 kHz with a maximum at 7.9 kHz and 9.75 kHz ( Boulard 1995).

Courtship song consists of echemes, produced by the tymbal and clicks, produced by wing flapping (Fig. 31 ), which follow each other ( Gogala et al. 2005, Mol et al. 2013). Echeme duration is 104 (83-132) ms, interecheme interval duration 132 (48-176) ms and the wing clicks are in the middle of the intervals between echemes ( Gogala et al. 2005, Mol et al. 2013). Courtship song can follow the calling song without interruption, lasts from one minute to many minutes and can switch back to the calling song again without interruption ( Mol et al. 2013). The frequency range of echemes is from 5.5 to 12 kHz with a maximum between 6 kHz and 6.5 kHz and amplitude spectra show audible frequencies in the range of 1.7-4.6 kHz with a maximum around 3 kHz ( Mol et al. 2013).

Selected sound samples of Cicadatra platyptera are available on the web pages Songs of the European singing cicadas ( Gogala 2020).

Materials: Suppl. material 6

Diagnosis

Cicadatra platyptera (Fig. 27 ) occurs in steppe habitats in arid regions. It usually sits and sings in grass and low herbaceous vegetation.

Figures

Figure 27. Cicadatra platyptera male.

Figure 28. Map with localities of Cicadatra platyptera in Bulgaria. Blue - data from collections, red - bioacoustic data collected in this survey.

Figure 29. Altitudinal distribution of Cicadatra platyptera. The percentage of the recorded localities is displayed in 200 - metre altitude zones.

Figure 30. Calling song of Cicadatra platyptera. (A) spectrogram and oscillogram of the calling song; (B) oscillogram of six echemes corresponding to the inverted window in (A).

Figure 31. Courtship song of Cicadatra platyptera. (A) spectrogram and oscillogram of the courtship song; (B) oscillogram of the enlarged part corresponding to the inverted window in (B), with arrows indicating wing clicks.