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| Insects of Britain and Ireland: the families of Hemiptera |
Cicadas.
Salient features of adults. Terrestrial.
Phytophagous. Large; about 20 mm long; the males very noisy, emitting loud, continuous sounds (in numerous species of warm climates, via paired tymbals at the base of the abdomen, the extra-ordinary level of sound production in this family being associated with complex auditory organs that are lacking in other Homoptera possessing comparable tymbals), or not extremely noisy (in that those of the only British representative produce sound of such a high frequency as to be inaudible to many people); fliers; relatively stout bodied. Rostrum not separated from the prosternum by a gula. Antennae longer than the head, readily visible from above; consisting of short segments with a terminal, unsegmented arista that is much longer than the segments. Ocelli present; 3; between the eyes. Tegulae absent. Fore-wings well developed; in the resting insect sloping roof-like over the abdomen; more or less uniform in texture; with transparent cells (glassy between the veins); without costal fracture and cuneus; with a clavus; with conspicuously raised, reticulate venation. Clavus without convergence of veins to form a Y. Hind coxae mobile. The posterior tibiae cylindrical. Tarsi 3 segmented.
Taxonomy. Suborder Homoptera. Auchenorrhyncha. Cicadoidea.
British representation. 1 species in Britain (this being very rare in Britain, and confined to the New Forest. “The Cicadas are happy, for their wives are dumb" (Xenarchus)); genera 1. Cicadetta. E.g., C. montana (New Forest Cicada).
Illustrations. • Cicadetta montana (New Forest Cicada: B. Ent. 392). • Cicadetta montana (detail: B. Ent. 392). • Cicadetta montana (dissections: B. Ent. 392). • Cicadetta montana (legend+text: B. Ent. 392). • Cicadetta montana (text: B. Ent. 392, cont.). • Cicadetta montana, with Membracidae, Issidae and Tettigometridae: Edwards. CICADIDAE. 1, Cicadetta montana. MEMBRACIDAE. 2, Centrotus cornutus; 3, Gargara genistae. TETTIGOMETRIDAE. 4, Tettigometra impressopunctata. ISSIDAE. 5, Issus coleoptratus. From Edwards (1896) Plate 3, with approximate lengths added.
We advise against extracting comparative information from the descriptions. This is much more easily achieved using the DELTA data files or the interactive key, which allows access to the character list, illustrations, full and partial descriptions, diagnostic descriptions, differences and similarities between taxa, lists of taxa exhibiting or lacking specified attributes, and distributions of character states within any set of taxa. See also Guidelines for using data taken from Web publications.
Cite this publication as: ‘Watson, L., and Dallwitz, M.J. 2003 onwards. Insects of Britain and Ireland: the families of Hemiptera. Version: 27th July 2019. delta-intkey.com’.
