Cicada Journals July 5, 2007

July 5th, 2007 - More Okanagana Stuff

Well folks, I'm happy to report that my newly-found Okanagana rimosa specimen is still alive and well after 6 days of captivity. As a matter of fact, I have him enclosed in a mesh bag on an oak-tree branch in my yard. Like periodical cicadas, it would seem that Okanagana happily call in captivity.

Having the sun shining directly on the mesh bag seems to trigger the calling. Also they seem to like to call in the late afternoon around 5:00 or 6:00 pm. Of course he does call during all times of the day but it just seems that the frequency of calls per hour seems to pick up around this time.

Conditions of course have to be optimum like there being sun around. If it is cloudy with threatening rain, they won't call. Click the thumbnail above and to the left to watch the movie. You can see that trying to find these in the wild may be difficult due to localizing where they are calling from.

Also below are some nice photos I took outside which may be a little bit clearer. I suspect that this O. rimosa may be only a few days from teneral (newly molted) due to the heavy pubescence which is similar to the pubescence I note on a T. canicularis specimen last year in July. Click on the thumbnails below for larger images.

New Link Partner - Welcome "Sing A Song For The Cicada"

That's right, welcome a new link partner Sing A Song For The Cicada. This site is brand spankin-new and basically is a blog about this guy's fascination with all things cicadas. Check his cicada site out.

So, What Was Happening At This time Last Year?

Well first I can tell you that during this time last year, I was having the time of my life because I wasn't working. That meant that I was able to devote all of my free time to hunting cicadas. This time last year, I discovered my first T. canicularis cicada nymph of the season, I brought it back home and took lots of photos of it. Click here for yourself and see what was going on.

Let me tell you, I'm really glad that I have the Cicada Journals to fall back on. It has really become a great source of information for me as well as for others. Why? Well, because by going back into the archives, I can predict with relative ease just about when to expect the emergence of certain species of Cicadas here in the Northeast. This is really useful, not to mention all the behaviors that I have noted over the years. It's all contained in the Cicada Journals and Archives. You should check it out for yourself.

Unfortunately now however, due to my 9 to 5 job and this year being a Periodical Cicada year (Brood XIII in the mid-west) I really haven't had much time to go out at night to hunt for nymphs. The problem is, I'm still digesting and trying to organize all the Brood XIII data that I collected for the first two weeks in June! Currently I am only about half-way through. And of course, there is that 8 to 10 hour part of the day which I have to devote to making money so I can continue to run this web site and pay bills.

Gah!! I wish I was independently wealthy!!

That just leaves a very narrow part of the day to actually sit down and write and do web site updates. Which only leaves the weekends now for cicada field study.

And THEN I finally found Okanagana rimosa!! So now I've been researching everything that there is to know about them as well as trying to obtain more specimens. That's ok though because I am surveying different parts of Massachusetts which is very important for my distribution mapping.

Besides, I find the habitat for O. rimosa to be similar to that of Martha's Vineyard with the sandy soil and scrub oaks and pitch pine forests. Of course in a habitat like that I found T. auletes last year!!

This makes me wonder of the possibility of T. auletes being in the general area in Montague where I got O. rimosa. So this alone makes it worth spending all my time there. Who knows what the future will hold for this area of Massachusetts?

Lots of Reader Emails, Reader News, Reader Photos and Reader Questions.

Like last year, this year has seen no slow down of the number of people emailing me with cicada and cicada killer questions. Some of these emails are really thought-provoking. I apologize for not keeping this section of the site updated like I should and why now, there are three pages of reader-email with questions and observations about Cicadas.

My new Report Cicada and Cicada Killer Sightings online form so far has been very successful. Remember, if you want to report a Cicada or Cicada Killer sighting and you want to send a photo this form is perhaps the best way to go.

Unfortunately, if you want to send more than one photo, you will have to submit the online form more than once. I'm working on improving this but it takes time.

More Brood XIII Information Coming Soon!

As mentioned previously, I have so much information to post with regards to my Brood XIII away mission that I'm thinking of starting a whole separate section to the Massachusetts Cicadas web site devoted solely to Brood XIII. I still have tons of videos and a photos and the whole nine yards. I would like to do something similar to what I did back in 2004 for the Brood X Magicicada emergence in the Mid-Atlantic.

I haven't even gotten to the part yet of where I made the local Illinois news and I was interviewed by the Chicago Tribune AND I was on a Japanese television news story thanks to Cicadamania.com yessirree lots of stuff went down while I was in Illinois and I just need to have the time to organize and report it all.

Anyway, see what others say about me, this site and their observations about cicadas and cicada killers this year.

Well, that's it for now. I think for my next update, I'm going to switch back to compiling all my data for Brood XIII. John Cooley of the University of Connecticut is allowing me to post a new Distribution Map for Brood XIII based on all the datapoints we collected. Of course he want's me to add all kinds of disclaimers, etc. so I'll have to wait for his final approval.

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