Tibicina haematodes (Scopoli, 1763)

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

Tibicina haematodes (Scopoli, 1763)

Distribution

General distribution: Southern Europe: Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia, France, Greece, Italy, Moldova, North Macedonia, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia, Spain; Central Europe: Austria, Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Slovakia, Switzerland; Eastern Europe: Russia (south European Russia), Ukraine; Middle East: Iran, Palestine, Turkey; Transcaucasia: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia (summarised by Duffels and van der Laan 1985 and Sanborn 2014).

There are dubious citations for Corsica ( Nast 1972, Quartau and Fonseca 1988) and Sicily ( Servadei 1967, Nast 1972, Quartau and Fonseca 1988), as Tibicina haematodes was never found during recent fieldwork with bioacoustic methods on these Islands (Thomas Hertach, personal communication).

Distribution in Bulgaria: This colourful cicada was found in many localities in Bulgaria and the data are known for 45 localities (Fig. 69 ). In literature, we found the data for Bulgaria in Yoakimov (1909) and Pelov (1968). Nedyalkov (1908) lists the species for northern and southern Bulgaria and points out that they are less common than Lyristes plebejus . Arabadzhiev (1963) considers Tibicina haematodes as a pest in orchards in the area of Pavlikeni. The species is also listed in overviews by Nast (1972), Schedl (1986), Nast (1987) and Quartau and Fonseca (1988), but without the exact location data for Bulgaria.

In Bulgaria, it is generally distributed with known data in western Danubian Plane, eastern Danubian Plane, northern lowest hills of the Pre-Balkan, southern Lower Mountain Pre-Balkan, northern Balkan Mts., western Sub-Balkan valleys, eastern Sub-Balkan valleys, Kraishte-Ichtiman, Sandanski-Petrich Middle Struma valley and eastern Rhodope Mts. (Fig. 69 ).

In this survey, the majority of the population was found between sea level and 600 m (91% of the population) (Fig. 70 ). At the highest point, one male was found on the Kachulka peak from Slivenski Balkan (1072 m a.s.l.) collected by N. Atanassov, which is kept in the SOFM collection.

Notes

Acoustic behaviour: The song recorded during our fieldwork in Bulgaria does not differ from the pattern recorded, analysed and described by Boulard (1990), Boulard (1995), Boulard and Mondon (1995), Gogala (2002), Sueur and Aubin (2002) and Sueur and Aubin (2003).

The calling song (Fig. 71 ) begins with 1 to 8 introductory echemes (average 3.6 ± 1.6), which continue in a simple monotonous buzz lasting from 15 seconds to half a minute, averaging 14.0 ± 2.3 s ( Sueur and Aubin 2002, Sueur and Aubin 2003). The complete song is repeated after a pause of approximately the same length (Gogala 2002). The buzz is made up of groups of pulses (Fig. 71 C) consisting of 6-8 pulses arranged in two subgroups of 3-4 pulses (Fig. 71 D). The number in the group of pulses is stable within and between individuals. The pulse group generates a large amplitude modulation at a rate of 98.3 ± 1.6 per second, the pulse-group duration is 8.2 ± 0.4 ms and the pulse-group period is 10.2 ± 0.4 ms. The single pulse lasts about 1 ms and generates a fast amplitude modulation at a rate of about 1000 Hz. The frequency range is about 5.2 to 8.0 kHz with three main peaks: one band with higher energy at about 7.4 kHz and two sidebands at about 6.4 and 8.4 kHz ( Boulard 1995, Sueur and Aubin 2002, Sueur and Aubin 2003).

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

Materials: Suppl. material 16

Diagnosis

Tibicina haematodes (Fig. 68 ) is the most colourful European cicada and one of the largest and loudest European species of the singing cicada. The species occurs mainly in closed high shrubland and woodland on deciduous trees. The males usually sing high up in the tree canopies.

Figures

Figure 68. Tibicina haematodes male.

Figure 69. Map with localities of Tibicina haematodes in Bulgaria. Black - literature data, blue - data from collections, red - bioacoustic data collected in this survey.

Figure 70. Altitudinal distribution of Tibicina haematodes. The percentage of the recorded localities is displayed in 200 - metre altitude zones.

Figure 71. Calling song of Tibicina haematodes. (A) spectrogram and oscillogram of the calling song; (B) oscillogram of the beginning of the calling song with four introductory echemes corresponding to the inverse window in (A); (C) detailed oscillogram showing subgroups of pulses corresponding to the inverse window in (B); (D) detailed oscillogram showing pulses corresponding to the inverse window in (C).