by Carl Strang
The green-winged cicada (Diceroprocta vitripennis) provides a favorite example of why I need to include 22 counties in my survey of Chicago-region singing insects. I checked a final two locations recently, and am satisfied that I have a good sense of where this species occurs.
The most important habitat feature appears to be sandy soil. Cicadas spend most of their lives underground, so it is not surprising that soil texture can influence their distribution. The mapped area contains two sandy regions: the dunes edge of Lake Michigan in Indiana and Michigan, and the Kankakee River corridor. The cicadas do not, however, extend throughout those soil areas. They thin out quickly in western Starke and Pulaski Counties, Indiana, and do not reach into the sand soil portions of St. Joseph and Marshall Counties.
Green-winged cicadas had an important lesson for me this year. Previously I had thought of them as a woodland species, having observed them singing in trees, especially in black oak savannas and woodlands. Then I came to this spot in Newton County, Indiana:
I was surprised to step out of the car, expecting to focus on sand-soil grasshoppers, and hear green-winged cicadas singing. As I approached them I found that they were singing, not from the big trees, but from plants no taller than me, winged sumacs and a small black oak.
They were very alert, and required a glacially slow stalk.
I also found a site in Jasper County where the cicadas were singing from shrubs. They can be fairly loud at close range, but they are small, with bodies not much more than an inch long, so the song quickly attenuates over distance. It seems to carry better when the singing perch is in a tree. The song is a distinctive pulsing rasp:
These early season cicadas sing mornings to mid-afternoons, and largely are done by the end of July.