SONGS OF CICADAS

from Slovenia, Croatia and Macedonia

In the Slovene Museum of Natural History (Prirodoslovni muzej Slovenije) in Ljubljana - Slovenia exists a unit for Natural Audio and Video Documentation of Slovenia (NAVIS). One of the activities is the research in bioacoustics of insects, with a focus on true bugs (Heteroptera) and singing cicadas (Homoptera: Cicadoidea).

Here we represent typical calling songs of 9 species od cicadas, 8 of them found in Slovenia and 1 - Cicadetta mediterranea - living on the nearby coast of Southern Istria near Pula (Croatia).

Songs of some smaller species are high pitched, ranging into ultrasound (e.g.Tettigetta brullei ) and are not easily detectable by unaided ear. A "bat or ultrasonic detector" (UsD, in our case an Ultra Sound Advice S-25 detector) with a directional microphone (Mic) helps to localize such small cicadas even at distances up to 50 m.

Recordings presented here were made with a directional microphone Telinga Pro III and Sonyª DAT recorder (TCD-D3 or TCD-D7)(DAT) by Matija Gogala (Ljubljana) and Andrej V. Popov (St.Petersburg, Russia) during the summers 1994/95 in Slovenia and in one case using different recording equipment (Cicadetta montana ) in Russia. The sonogram was produced using the Signalyzeª 3.0 software.

Due to high frequencies in the songs of some species we use here the sound files with the high sampling rate of 48 kS/s. If you can not play back sounds with the same rate use the lower sampling rate but be aware, that the sounds are slightly slowed down and lowered in pitch.

In latin names of species we use here the terminology of Wolfgang Schedl from Innsbruck (1986), Zool. Jahrb. Syst., 113: 1-27

You can look at the detailed pictures of cicadas in JPEG format by clicking the icons or highlighted JPG information "JPG,...KB" and listen to the sounds in SUN/NEXT format by clicking the "au,...KB" highlighted information.

Authors:

The three larger and in Slovenia common species of cicadas sing very loud and are easily recognizable:

In the carstic region one can hear and find the smaller
(JPG, 19KB)Tettigetta argentata (Olivier 1790)(AU, 102KB).

(JPG, 14KB) The song of Tettigetta brullei (Fieber 1876) (=pygmea (Olivier 1790)) (AU, 169KB) and (AU, 174KB) has most energy in the spectral range between 16 and 20 kHz (see sonogram below) and can therefore be heard without the aid of an ultrasonic detector only in a close range (up to 1 or 2 m). It's song is described in details in Acta entomologica slovenica 5(2): 89-101 (1997).

JPG, 31KBCicadetta dimissa (Hagen 1856) (AU, 265KB) has a complex repeated song pattern, and can be heard with unaided ear. Songs have been described in Acta entomologica slovenica 8(1): 7-20.

(JPG, 10KB)Cicadetta mediterranea Fieber 1876 has two different phrases (1, 2) (AU, 224KB) and (AU, 213KB). This species can be found on grass and other green plants locally in the coastal region of Southern Istria. A paper describing it's song in details appeared in Acta entomologica slovenica 5(1): 11-24 (1997).

The species complex which can be found also in the colder parts of Europe and Slovenia is
(JPG, 18KB) Cicadetta montana (Scopoli 1772). (AU, 266KB).
In Slovenia one can find and hear 3 closely related taxa of mountain cicadas with different songs, which will be also presented here in the near future.

Another small species with two types of high pitched song is
(JPG, 21KB)Cicadivetta tibialis (Panzer 1798). The temporal pattern of the first song (AU, 340KB) resembles that of C. mediterranea but the second song has very different and simpler structure (AU, 149KB). A detailed description of the song of this species has been published in Acta entomologica slovenica 4(2): 45-62 (1996).

We are looking forward to your comments or additional information!

If you are interested in songs of some S.E.Asian cicadas please click here!

If you like cicadas anyway open CicadaMania

Do you want to exit frames?

or to go to the front page: Museum's Bioacoustic Pages?


Zadnja sprememba / last change: 28. 10. 2003

  PMS NAVIS/Matija Gogala