Cicadetta macedonica Schedl, 1999

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

Cicadetta macedonica Schedl, 1999

Distribution

General distribution: Southern Europe: Greece, North Macedonia, Romania, Serbia ( Gogala and Trilar 2016); Central Europe: Czech Republic ( Malenovský and Lauterer 2017) (all data except for the countries with the citation in brackets are summarised by Sanborn 2014).

Distribution in Bulgaria: Cicadetta macedonica was found for the first time in Bulgaria in 50 localities in northern lowest hills of the Pre-Balkan, southern Lower Mountain Pre-Balkan, northern Balkan Mts., southern Balkan Mts., Kraishte-Ichtiman, Pirin Mt., Dabrash-Batak western Rhodope Mts., Prespa-Chernatitsa western Rhodope Mts., eastern Rhodope Mts. and Strandzha Mt. (Fig. 47 ). The majority of the population is distributed between 400 and 1200 m (90% of the population) (Fig. 48 ). The lowest point where we have recorded this species is near Kalovo at Mladezhka reka in Strandzha Mt. (162 m a.s.l.) and the highest western Rhodopes near the deviation Batak-Dospat-Sarnitsa (1491 m a.s.l.).

Notes

Acoustic behaviour: The song was described by Gogala and Trilar (1999), Gogala and Trilar (2004) and Gogala et al. (2008).

The many-minutes lasting calling songs of Cicadetta macedonica consist of a series of short echemes (SE) with a single long echeme (LE) at the end (Fig. 49 ). The song sequence usually begins with very long period of SE repetitions lasting over one minute and ends with LE. The sequences of phrases then follow with shorter series of SE followed by one LE. The SE duration is 26 ± 5 ms, the interval between them 63.4 ± 12 ms, the repetition frequency is about 11 ± 1 Hz and the LE duration is 161 ± 20 ms. The next phrase starts after an interval of half a second. The song contains frequencies from 5 to 20 kHz with a maximum between 12 and 14 kHz ( Gogala and Trilar 1999, Gogala and Trilar 2004, Gogala et al. 2008).

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

Materials: Suppl. material 11

Diagnosis

Cicadetta macedonica (Fig. 46 ) inhabits sparse thermophilic forests, mainly oak forests and also mixed deciduous forests. The males sing in the trees on prominent branches, but also on isolated smaller trees or shrubs or even in the grass in forest clearings, where females gather to find mating partners ( Gogala and Trilar 1999).

Figures

Figure 46. Cicadetta macedonica male.

Figure 47. Map with localities of Cicadetta macedonica in Bulgaria. Blue - data from collections, red - bioacoustic data collected in this survey.

Figure 48. Altitudinal distribution of Cicadetta macedonica. The percentage of the recorded localities is displayed in 200 - metre altitude zones.

Figure 49. Calling song of Cicadetta macedonica. (A) spectrogram and oscillogram of four phrases of the calling song; (B) oscillogram of one phrase corresponding to the inverted window in (A).