Macrotristria angularis

Macrotristria angularis
specimen in the Australian Museum
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Insecta
Order: Hemiptera
Family: Cicadidae
Genus: Macrotristria
Species: M. angularis
Binomial name
Macrotristria angularis
(Germar, 1834)

Macrotristria angularis, commonly known as the cherrynose, is an Australian cicada native to eastern Australia, where it is found in sclerophyll forests.

Taxonomy

German naturalist Ernst Friedrich Germar described the cherrynose in 1834 as Cicada angularis,[1] reporting its type locality incorrectly as Sierra Leone.[2] Swedish entomologist Carl Stål named the genus Macrotristria in 1870, though this was misspelt as Macrotristia and Macrotistria in some later publications. The cherrynose is the type species of the genus.[3]

The cherrynose gets its common name from a red structure that resembles a nose, yet is in fact a structure containing muscles that help the cicada suck xylem from trees with its proboscis.[4] An alternate common name is whiskey drinker.[5]

Description

The cherrynose is a medium- to large cicada, the male and female similar in appearance. The head and thorax are black (or red-brown in North and Central Queensland) with orange markings. The postclypeus is red. The underparts are brown to blackish.[6] They have an array of cuticular nanostructures on the transparent panes of their wings - conical protuberances with a spacing and height of about 200 nm, tipped with a spherical cap with a radius of curviture of around 25-45 nm.[7] These act as anti-wetting and anti-reflective surfaces.[7]

The call has a trilling sound and is made in the day and at sunset.[6]

Distribution and habitat

The adult cherrynose is found on the upper branches and trunks of tall eucalypts in sclerophyll forests, and is becoming rare in the Sydney region.[4] They have also been recorded from sheoaks, apples (Angophora), native cypress (Callitris) and Tamarix aphylla.[6]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Germar, Ernst Friedrich (1834). "Observations sur plusieurs espèces du genre Cicada Latr.". Revue Entomologique (in French) 2: 49–82 [68], pls. 19–26.
  2. ↑ Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts (19 November 2013). "Species Macrotristria angularis (Germar, 1834)". Australian Faunal Directory. Commonwealth of Australia. Retrieved 28 November 2013.
  3. ↑ Moulds, Maxwell Sydney (30 April 2012). "A Review of the Genera of Australian Cicadas (Hemiptera: Cicadoidea)". Zootaxa 3287: 1–262 [144–145].
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Moulds, Maxwell (1 September 2009). "Those noisy Sydney insects - the cicadas". In Daniel Lunney, Pat Hutchings, Dieter Hochuli. The natural history of Sydney. Mosman, NSW: Royal Zoological Society of New South Wales. pp. 227–233. ISBN 9780980327236.
  5. ↑ "Cicadas: Rhythm of life". Australian Geographic. Retrieved 28 November 2013.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 Moulds, Maxwell Sydney (1990). Australian Cicadas. Kensington, New South Wales: New South Wales University Press. pp. 95–97. ISBN 0-86840-139-0.
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 Watson, Jolanta A.; Hu, Hsuan-Ming; Cribb, Bronwen W.; and Watson, Gregory S. (2011). "Anti-wetting on insect cuticle – structuring to minimise adhesion and weight". In Pramatarova, Lilyana. On biomimetics. Rijeka, Croatia: Intech. pp. 395–418. ISBN 9789533072715. Archived from the original on 11 April 2012.