Neue Erkenntnisse über die Systematik der Cicadetta montana Gruppe (Auchenorrhyncha: Cicadoidea: Tibicinidae).

Abstract

According to recent bioacoustic investigations, the mountain singing cicada Cicadetta montana (Scopoli, 1772) is a complex of morphologically very similar species. The calling song of C. montana is a continuous, long and slowly increasing sound, which rapidly decays after about 1 minute (Fig. 2). The calling song of C. brevipennis is a sequence of much shorter "binary" phrases, composed of one long and one short echeme (Fig. 3). Units of the C. cerdaniensis calling song are much shorter and each ends without an interruption with a loud impulse (Fig. 4). This species has much wider distribution as previously assumed. The calling song phrases of the C. macedonica comprise series of short echemes ending with a longer echeme (Fig. 5). Morphologically distinct but close related C. podolica has calling song phrases with a similar structure, but the repetition rate of short echemes is slightly different and the long echeme at the end is substantially longer (Fig. 6). Geographic distribution of all these species in (Central) Europe has to be determined with the aid of bioacoustic methods anew.

Keywords

mountain cicada, Cicadetta montana, Cicadetta brevipennis, Cicadetta cerdaniensis, Cicadetta macedonica, Cicadetta podolica, acoustics, calling song.