Floury Baker

Aleeta curvicosta

Floury bakers, so named for the flour-like dusting that covers the bodies of newly merged adults, have adapted to a wide range of habitats: you’re just as likely to encounter these cicadas in a city garden as you are in remote bushland.

Wing length: 30–51 mm.

Bladder

Cystosoma saundersii

These experts in camouflage use their leaf-like wings as a cover from predatory birds. Males possess a hollow, balloon-like abdomen that acts as a sound reflector to project their chorus over long distances. When a female approaches, the male begins its courtship song: a sequence of short and spasmodic chirps.

Wing length: 36–55 mm.

Cherrynose

Macrotristria angularis

Also known as the whiskey drinker, these cicadas emit a dawn-to-dusk rattle-like song from the upper trunks of eucalypts. The bulbous ‘nose’ houses a muscular pump used like a drinking straw to feed on eucalypt sap.

Wing length: 46–61 mm.

Gudanga browni

Adults of this species – endemic to WA – appear on mulga trees in semi-arid areas after summer rains. Their frog-like call is made up of a series of rapid clicks and is particularly loud at dusk.

Wing length: 18–26 mm.

Northern Double Drummer

Thopha sessiliba

One of Australia’s largest and loudest, this species can be found in the north from September to April. Nymphs emerging from the ground are coated in a thin layer of mud, which dries to become a permanent part of their bodies.

Wing length: 50–63 mm.

Greengrocer

Cyclochila australasiae

Usually a vivid lime-green colour, greengrocers occasionally wear yellow, tan or blue coats. Males produce a shrill, ear-splitting song – at close range the volume can approach 120 decibels; equivalent to the level of a nearby speeding train.

Wing length: 50–58 mm

Tasmanian Hairy

Tettigarcta tomentose

These long-lived Apple Islanders thrive in the cold and are incapable of the high trilling of other cicadas, instead producing a low-intensity call that vibrates through plants. Potential mates “hear” them through sensors between the claws at the ends of their legs.

Wing length: 32–41 mm.

Redeye

Psaltoda moerens

In one summer season thousands of aptly named redeyes fill the trees; the next, they’re gone. On hot days they spend large amounts of time sucking sap from eucalypt branches and spraying clear waste fluid (which can be felt as a light sprinkle – perplexing on a fine day).

Wing length: 43–55 mm.