Cicadatra atra (Olivier, 1790)

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 atra (Olivier, 1790)

Distribution

General distribution: Southern Europe: Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia, France, Greece, Italy (including Sicily), Montenegro (Trilar & Gogala, unpublished data), North Macedonia, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia, Spain; Eastern Europe: Russia (South European Russia), Ukraine; Middle East: Cyprus, Iran, Israel, Lebanon, Palestine, Syria, Turkey; Transcaucasia: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Russia (Chechnya) (all data except for the countries with the citation in brackets are summarised by Duffels and van der Laan (1985), Quartau and Fonseca (1988) and Sanborn (2014).

There are dubious citations of Cicadatra atra for Czech Republic ( Nast 1972, Schedl 2000, Holzinger et al. 2003), Germany ( Schedl 1986) and Switzerland ( Nast 1972, Schedl 1986, Nast 1987, Lodos and Kalkandelen 1981, Schedl 2000, Günthart and Mühlenthaler 2002), as it is not listed in the new faunistic papers for these countries ( Malenovský and Lauterer 2017, Nickel et al. 2016, Hertach and Nagel 2013). The same is probably true for Hungary ( Schedl 1986). Doubtful are also quotations for Corsica ( Servadei 1967, Nast 1972, Boulard 1992b) and Sardinia ( Servadei 1967, Nast 1972, Quartau and Fonseca 1988), since Cicadatra atra was never found in recent fieldwork with bioacoustic methods on these islands (Thomas Hertach, personal communication).

Distribution in Bulgaria: Cicadatra atra is abundant throughout Bulgaria and data are known for 79 localities (Fig. 13 ). In literature, we found data for Bulgaria in Nedyalkov (1908), Yoakimov (1909), Dirimanow and Harisanow (1965) and Sander (1985). It is also cited in Háva (2016), but misidentified as Cicadatra persica . Cicadatra atra is also mentioned in the overviews by Nast (1972), Nast (1987) and Lodos and Kalkandelen (1981), but without precise location information for Bulgaria.

In Bulgaria, it is distributed all over the country with the known data in western Danubian Plane, eastern Danubian Plane, northern lowest hills of the Pre-Balkan, Kraishte-Ichtiman, Kyustendil-Blagoevgrad Middle Struma valley, Sandanski-Petrich Middle Struma valley, Rila Mt., Pirin Mt., Dabrash-Batak western Rhodope Mts., Prespa-Chernatitsa western Rhodope Mts., Upper Thracian Plain, Tundzha-Burgas Valley, eastern Rhodope Mts., Haskovo Hills Land, Sakar Mt. and Strandzha Mt. (Fig. 13 ).

In this study, the majority of the population was found between sea level and 600 m a.s.l. (86% of the population) (Fig. 14 ), but also include populations up to 1570 m a.s.l. where two female specimens kept in the SOFM collection were collected by an unknown collector in Pamporovo.

Notes

Acoustic behaviour: The song was described by Popov (1975), Boulard (1992b) and Boulard (1995), while the mechanism of wing clicking was described by Gogala and Trilar (2003) and the sound reception by Sueur et al. (2010).

Four types of songs are registered in Cicadatra atra : continuous calling song, intermittent calling song, courtship song and alarm song (rivalry song or distress call) ( Popov 1975, Boulard 1992b).

Continuous calling song consists of a sound with a constant amplitude, which is up to several minutes long and resembles a smooth high-frequency buzz (Fig. 15 ), which is randomly interrupted by short pauses ( Popov 1975, Boulard 1992b, Boulard 1995). Due to the alternating tymbals, the pulse structure is poorly defined ( Popov 1975). The frequency range is between 8.0 and 16.0 kHz and the main peak frequency is about 10.0 kHz and the second is about 12.2 kHz ( Boulard 1995).

Intermittent calling song consists of short echemes (duration 95-129 ms) and the interecheme periods of approximately equal length (Fig. 15). During the short echemes, the intensity of the song rises smoothly and ends steeply at the end. Each echeme consists of successive sequences of pulses whose frequency increases by 1/3 towards the end of the echeme. The frequency characteristics are almost the same as in the continuous calling song (Popov 1975).

Courtship song (Fig. 16 ) have the same structure, temporal parameters and frequency characteristics of short echemes as intermittent calling song with additional wing clicks in the middle of the interecheme interval ( Boulard 1992b, Gogala 2002, Gogala et al. 2005). The clicks always occur in connection with the opening and closing of the forewings and the hind wings also move a little bit. The click appears in the phase of closing the wings, but in the phase of opening the wings, the soft preclicks of the wings are clearly visible, which occurred 8-9 ms before the main click. The inner edges of the tegmina remain attached to the mesonotum throughout the whole cycle and the forewings open to an almost horizontal plane with wing tips raised above the abdomen ( Gogala and Trilar 2003).

Boulard (1992b) also described the second phase of courtship behaviour in which male and female stand side by side and the male produces a chirping song shortly before copulation begins.

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

Materials: Suppl. material 3

Diagnosis

Cicadatra atra (Fig. 12 ) is a highly polyphagous species ( Boulard 1992b, Holzinger et al. 2003), which is environmentally undemanding. It is found in very different habitats with trees, shrubs and herbs, in the garrigue, in orchards, more rarely in olive groves, sometimes in vineyards ( Boulard 1992b). In the Black Sea area, it is reported to occur exclusively in grass ( Popov 1975). The males of Cicadatra atra never sing very high in the trees, usually less than 3 m above the ground ( Boulard 1992b).

Figures

Figure 12. Cicadatra atra singing male.

Figure 13. Map with localities of Cicadatra atra in Bulgaria. Black - literature data, blue - data from collections, red - bioacoustic data collected in this survey.

Figure 14. Altitudinal distribution of Cicadatra atra. The percentage of the recorded localities is displayed in 200 - metre altitude zones.

Figure 15. Continuous and intermittent calling song of Cicadatra atra. (A) spectrogram and oscillogram of the song showing the transition from continuous song to the calling song with short echemes; (B) oscillogram of the enlarged part of the transition from the continuous song to the calling song with short echemes corresponding to the inverted window in (A).

Figure 16. Courtship song of Cicadatra atra. (A) spectrogram and oscillogram of the courtship song; (B) oscillogram of the enlarged part corresponding to the inverted window in (B), arrows indicate the wing clicks.