''Cyclochila australasiae'' is a species of

cicada The cicadas () are a superfamily, the Cicadoidea, of insects in the order Hemiptera (true bugs). They are in the suborder Auchenorrhyncha, along with smaller jumping bugs such as leafhoppers and froghoppers. The superfamily is divided into two ...

and one of Australia's most familiar insects. It is distributed through coastal regions of southeastern Australia. Green specimens are commonly known as green grocers and yellow ones as yellow mondays. It is one of the loudest insects in the world.

Taxonomy

''Cyclochila australasiae'' was first described as ''Tettigonia australasiae'' in 1805 by amateur zoologist

Edward Donovan Edward Donovan (1768 – 1 February 1837) was an Anglo-Irish writer, natural history illustrator, and amateur zoologist. He did not travel, but collected, described and illustrated many species based on the collections of other naturalists. Hi ...

, who reported that it was common in New South Wales and many specimens had been collected and sent to England.

Ernst Friedrich Germar Ernst Friedrich Germar (3 November 1786 – 8 July 1853) was a German professor and director of the Mineralogical Museum at Halle. As well as being a mineralogist he was interested in entomology and particularly in the Coleoptera and Hemiptera. ...

named it ''Cicada olivacea'' in 1830. It was the second Australian species of cicada described after the double drummer (''

Thopha saccata ''Thopha saccata'', the double drummer, is the largest Australian species of cicada and reputedly the loudest insect in the world. Documented by the Danish zoologist Johan Christian Fabricius in 1803, it was the first described and named cicada ...

''). It was formerly commonly known as the Great Green Cicada; in addition, the various colour forms have different vernacular names, including Yellow Monday for a common yellow morph; Chocolate Soldier for a rare dark tan form; Blue Moon for a rare turquoise form; and Masked Devil for its red-orange form. The names for the green and yellow forms have been recorded since at least 1896. Australian entomologist

Walter Wilson Froggatt Walter Wilson Froggatt (13 June 1858 – 18 March 1937) was an Australian economic entomologist. Early life Froggatt was born in Melbourne, Victoria, the son of George Wilson Froggatt, an English architect, and his wife Caroline, daughter of Gi ...

reported that the green form was known as green Monday (alongside yellow Monday for the yellow form) in his 1907 work ''Australian Insects''.

Description

''Cyclochila australasiae'' measures about in length, with a wingspan of . Diverse colour forms are seen, the most common being predominantly green or brownish yellow. It has red eyes. The exuvia, or discarded empty exoskeleton of the

nymph A nymph ( grc, νύμφη, nýmphē, el, script=Latn, nímfi, label=Modern Greek; , ) in ancient Greek folklore is a minor female nature deity. Different from Greek goddesses, nymphs are generally regarded as personifications of nature, are ty ...

form, is commonly seen on tree trunks in gardens and bushland during the summer months. The loud calls of the male are heard over the summer months; harsh and high-pitched, these may reach 120

decibel The decibel (symbol: dB) is a relative unit of measurement equal to one tenth of a bel (B). It expresses the ratio of two values of a power or root-power quantity on a logarithmic scale. Two signals whose levels differ by one decibel have a po ...

s. The sound is made by the rapid buckling of the timbal ribs, and amplified by resonation in an air sac; the frequency is around 4.3 kHz. Calls occur in the afternoon and dusk of warm days.

Distribution and habitat

''Cyclochila australasiae'' is found from Kroombit Tops in southeastern Queensland through eastern New South Wales and Victoria to the

Grampians The Grampian Mountains (''Am Monadh'' in Scottish Gaelic, Gaelic) is one of the three major mountain ranges in Scotland, that together occupy about half of Scotland. The other two ranges are the Northwest Highlands and the Southern Uplands. T ...

, and through to

Mount Gambier Mount Gambier is the second most populated city in South Australia, with an estimated urban population of 33,233 . The city is located on the slopes of Mount Gambier, a volcano in the south east of the state, about south-east of the capital Ad ...

in southeastern South Australia. It is common along the

Great Dividing Range The Great Dividing Range, also known as the East Australian Cordillera or the Eastern Highlands, is a cordillera system in eastern Australia consisting of an expansive collection of mountain ranges, plateaus and rolling hills, that runs rough ...

, and is also found in the

Warrumbungles The Warrumbungles is a mountain range in the Orana region of New South Wales, Australia. The nearest town is Coonabarabran. The area is easiest accessed from the Newell Highway which is the major road link directly between Melbourne, Victoria ...

. It is commonly seen (and heard) around Sydney and Melbourne, the Blue Mountains and

Gippsland Gippsland is a rural region that makes up the southeastern part of Victoria, Australia, mostly comprising the coastal plains to the rainward (southern) side of the Victorian Alps (the southernmost section of the Great Dividing Range). It covers ...

. In Brisbane, it is only encountered at elevations above 300 m (1000 ft). It was associated with the white stringybark (''

Eucalyptus globoidea ''Eucalyptus globoidea'', commonly known as the white stringybark, is a tree that is endemic to near-coastal areas of south-eastern Australia. It has rough, stringy bark, often furrowed on the trunk, glossy, lance-shaped to egg-shaped, often cur ...

'') in a study at three sites in western Sydney.

Life cycle

Their median total life cycle length is around six to seven years, this being from egg to a natural adult death. Most of this spent as a nymph. The cicada spends seven years in nymph form drinking sap from plant roots underground before emerging from the earth as an adult. The adults, who live for six weeks, fly around, mate, and breed over the summer.

In popular culture

Live cicadas are often collected by climbing trees and can be kept temporarily as pets in shoeboxes. They cannot easily be kept for longer than a day or two, given that they need flowing sap for food. The Green grocer cicada is now the topic of a popular Australian children's book, "Cecil Singer Cicada" (Michelle Cox) released in January 2020. The lifecycle of the Cicada was also referenced in the children's book Cicada (2018) by

Shaun Tan Shaun Tan (born 1973) is an Australian artist, writer and film maker. He won an Academy Award for '' The Lost Thing'', a 2011 animated film adaptation of a 2000 picture book he wrote and illustrated. Other books he has written and illustrated inc ...

. The Yellow Monday form is referenced in Clive James' epic poem "The River in the Sky" (2018).

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q5198685 Cicadinae Hemiptera of Australia Insects described in 1805