Cicadetta calliope calliope (Walker)

Sanborn, Allen F., Phillips, Polly K. & Gilllis, Philip, 2008, The Cicadas of Florida (Hemiptera: Cicadoidea: Cicadidae), Zootaxa 1916, pp. 1-43 : 15

Cicadetta calliope calliope (Walker) (Figs. 75, 166–174)

Cicada parvula Say 1825: 333 .

Cicada pallescens, Germar 1830: 44 .

Cicada calliope Walker 1850: 212 . Type locality: Warm Springs, North Carolina (now Hot Springs, Madison County, NC [Sanborn and Heath in preparation]). Holotype male is in the Natural History Museum, London.

The Cicadetta species are the first cicadas to become active during the year. They first emerge in early April and can be heard singing until early September. The most common collection dates are in July and August. This is a longer activity period than seen in more northern distributions (e.g. late May to early July in Kansas [ Beamer, 1928]). The species is associated with moist prairie meadows with perennial grasses and weeds in which the females oviposit and is rarely found in trees ( Beamer 1928). A good summary of their biology, including nymphal morphology, can be found in Beamer (1928). No acoustic analysis has been published but the song is expected to be a high frequency call based on our experience with other members of the genus.

Cicadetta calliope calliope has a wide distribution in the United States. It is found as far north as Virginia and as far west as Colorado ( Metcalf, 1963c; Kondratieff et al., 2001; Sanborn and Phillips unpublished). It has been reported from the following 19 Florida counties: Alachua, Bay, Charlotte, Duval, Highlands, Jackson, Leon, Levy, Liberty, Marion, Okaloosa, Orange, Palm Beach, Putnam, St. John’s, Santa Rosa, Sarasota, Seminole, and Suwannee. The species inhabits the Southeastern Plain and Southern Coastal Plains ecoregions with one record from the Miami Ridge/Atlantic Coastal Strip of the Southern Florida Coastal Plains ecoregion. The distribution of C. c. calliope (Fig. 75) overlaps significantly with the subspecies C. c. floridensis . The species and subspecies are separated primarily based on the coloration patterns of the males. The significant overlap in the distributions suggests that the validity of the subspecies needs further investigation.