Wow. Long time, but cicada season is coming up!
Hi All!
It's been a while but cicada season is coming up. Platypedia are already out and about in Southern California and Tibicinoides ought to be making an appearance soon enough. @bugsoundsjc and @easmeds and I are making a big push to try and round up the last few Okanagana standing (at least the ones that are reasonable).
Our molecular work is getting started and we're hoping to be off and running sometime by late spring. If we can collect the last 5-6 species we will be ready to start the minor task of sorting this all out and getting it written in under 300 pages and some remaining sanity.
The suspects at large are:
O. sugdeni; a very large, red cicada that haunts central Utah and doesn't like to come out and play but has in theory been collected in the last 10 or so years
O. georgi; one of the most recently described Okanagana prior to Jeff and I describing O. boweni. This one is only known from Coconino County, AZ @ameeds I'm counting on you
O. hirsuta; this one presents a problem as it is only found in the Channel Islands (and not the accessible ones) but there are observation on here.
O. schaefferi; We know this is out there. There are a few observations on iNat and we know it can be found in Cedar City, UT or the type locality in Arizona. A giant of an Okanagana.
Tibicinoides cupreosparsa; it's out there, and we have a line on it. It just doesn't play well with others.
The rest... well, they don't play well with anyone, some for over 100 years, and some are flat BS.
O. napa; described in 1919 by Davis, this is 95% a color morph of some other species though because of taxonomic precedence things will get a bit weird if we find out what that species is.
O. sperata; this is probably, maybe a species. Almost identical to O. magnifica, but known from a single specimen in NW California, about as far away from other magnifica as possible. This is why you don't describe from 1 specimen, even if you really, really want to.
O. pernix; a Bliven species. Now given that @mnishiguchi and @birdernaturalist found a bunch of these species that I also thought were BS it might be a thing, but it is so badly described that I honestly wouldn't recognize it if it was in front of me. Type is from Sage Hen.
O. yakimaensis; two specimens known from central Washington. Looks more like a color morph of something. Not holding my breath. Hasn't been seen since it was described. Most people have never even heard the name.
O. mariposa oregonensis; not sure what the deal with this is. I am mostly counting on @birdernaturalist and @mnishiguchi to find it for me though since it's found in Oregon. Big cicada with green basal membranes to the wings. Otherwise looks like O. mariposa. Might be protoperiodical which isn't good.
I hope all of you have been safe and healthy and here's to a better 2021!
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Sounds good! My wife and I are going to plan a weekend camping trip out to the road/canyon where Heath and Sanborn (2007) reported finding O. georgi. Maybe I can get my PI and/or some undergrads from the lab to tag along too.
It looks like most of their records were from late June. Do you think they'd be out earlier? How long does mating season for Okanagana usually last?
They could be out anytime starting the beginning of June or even mid May I would say. It is hard to be sure since it is a very poorly known species. They ought to be out until mid-late July. Okanagana are weird though and location/climate dependent. In Eugene they were still coming out in September, but that won't be the case in AZ. The general range though is anywhere from mid May to early September for the group as a whole.
Sounds good, thanks! Maybe I'll try to get out there for a day in late May to scout around/see if I get lucky and then head back to camp for a couple of nights in June. Any techniques that you like to use to catch them? After honing in on the call are most Okanagana pretty flight-happy as you close in?
Hone in on the call, then be ready with a net, some just stay put so you can actually grab them off the tree or bush with your hand, others are a bit more difficult. They tend to mostly be flighty once you swing at them.
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