The search for Britain’s only native species of cicada

By Chris Baraniuk

Technology reporter

2 December 2015 

This year, late in the summer, University of Oxford computer scientist Alex Rogers got an alert on his phone.

It was an email from an automated system telling him that a recording of a New Forest cicada's song might have been detected.

The species, Cicadetta montana, hadn't had a confirmed sighting in Britain for 15 years. It's a fascinating creature - the only cicada native to Britain and one which is considered endangered across much of Europe.

When Dr Rogers looked at the sonogram he realised this could indeed be the insect he, his colleagues, and thousands of citizen scientist volunteers had spent the last two years searching for.

He grabbed some professional recording equipment and jumped in his car. In a few hours he was on site at the GPS location attached to the original recording. In no time at all he picked up the singing of an insect - but it wasn't the fabled cicada.

"It turned out to be a Roesel's bush-cricket," he remembers, a little forlornly. "And I think I found the cricket that had triggered the original observation."

Since the spring of 2013, over 3,000 members of the public have downloaded the Hunt for the New Forest Cicada app for their smartphones.

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Search for Britain’s only cicada finds rare wildlife, but no cicada

Close, but no Cicada

June 2013. Rare species of moth, bat and plant were discovered in the New Forest National Park during a 24-hour census of wildlife. Enthusiasts young and old were joined by a host of experts over the weekend in this year's BioBlitz, organised by the New Forest National Park Authority.

500 species recorded

There were more than 1,200 finds with about 500 different species surveyed including the rare and aptly named moth Scarce Merveille du Jour, and the Daubenton's bat which was recorded for the first time at Roydon Woods Nature Reserve near Brockenhurst. 

No Cicada

But there were no sign of the elusive New Forest cicada despite help from a new smartphone app developed by scientists at the University of Southampton. The rare singing insect is the UK's only native cicada and hasn't been seen since 1993, although some evidence of its presence was found in 2000. The 'Cicada Hunt' app was launched at the BioBlitz and can pick up the insect's distinctive mating calls which it sings from May to July. More than 200 people have already downloaded the free software since it was released on 3 June, but so far its songs haven't been heard.

Next month is the best time to search

Dr Alex Rogers, from the University's Faculty of Physical Sciences and Engineering, said: ‘The next month or so is the ideal time to search for the New Forest cicada. It likes warm, still, sunny weather, and is most likely to be found in sunny clearings, where it will sing for a few hours either side of midday.'

The cicada app is available now for both iPhone and Android smartphones on the iTunes and Google Play app stores. Search for ‘Cicada Hunt'. To find out more about the New Forest Cicada Project go to www.newforestcicada.info

http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/cicada-new-forest.html

Cicada Wings Are Self-Cleaning

(ISNS) -- As 17-year cicadas wriggle out of the ground all over the northeastern U.S. this spring, they'll be reemerging into a world that understands them a little better. Researchers now find the design of their wings can cause filth to jump right off of them with the aid of dew, findings that might help lead to better artificial self-cleaning materials. 

Scientists had known that cicada wings are super-water-repellent, or super-hydrophobic. This is different from a great many substances that are simply water-repellent, or hydrophobic — for instance, oil and water famously do not mix. But a number of surfaces such as lotus leaves can make themselves even more water-repellent by covering themselves with microscopic bumps, so water drops can float on top much as mystics can lie on beds of nails. For example, cicada wings are covered in rows of waxy cones about 200 nanometers or billionths of a meter high. In comparison, the average human hair is roughly 100 microns or millionths of a meter wide. 

When it rains the super-hydrophobic nature of cicada wings can help them get clean — droplets rolling or splashing off them can remove soil, dust, pollen and microbes. But what if there is no rain, especially in the four to six weeks adult cicadas have to live above ground before dying? 

Now scientists find rain is not necessary to keep cicada wings clean. Apparently, grime can simply leap right off them, given dew. 

Mechanical engineer Chuan-Hua Chen at Duke University in Durham, N.C., and his colleagues were investigating a number of natural and artificial super-hydrophobic surfaces when they noticed drops of water at times rapidly disappeared. They were mystified by this behavior for years until they made observations from a different angle — they used a high-speed video camera to watch the droplets from the side of these materials instead of from above. 

"That's when we saw them jumping upward," Chen recalled.

Continued: http://www.livescience.com/29146-cicada-wings-are-self-cleaning.html

Vast cicada swarm due in USA

April 2013. Residents of north-eastern USA will soon observe an event not seen since 1996: The coming mass emergence of the Brood II cicadas. 

1.5 million per acre!

After spending 17 years living underground as nymphs, these large, winged insects will emerge to live out their short adult lives above ground. As many as 1.5 million cicadas can live per acre, and they are noisy too, they will certainly be heard: Cicadas have a unique call that can reach a whopping 90 decibels.

As alarming as this sounds, cicadas are actually quite harmless. In fact, they have positive effects on plants and provide food for many different animals, including birds, mammals, reptiles, even other insects. 

Brood 2 cicadas appear every 17 years across New York, Washington, D.C., Connecticut, Maryland, North Carolina, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. They measure just 1½ inches long and live for just 2 weeks. They live underground for 17 years, feeding on the juices of tree roots, before emerging to mate once every 17 years (That’s a long wait. Ed.). They live above ground for just 2 weeks before they die. 

There are several broods that appear once every 13 or 17 years in a very unusual life cycle, and when they overlap, it must be like the biblical plague.

http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/2013-cicada.html