Okanagana rimosa Found...Finally!

Okanagana rimosa Found...Finally!

I have finally captured a specimen of Okanagana rimosa today in Massachusetts. I have been trying to find this species here in Massachusetts since 2004. I knew it was here because I had an old exuvia that I found that year. In fact that nymphal skin of an O. rimosa was the very first skin that I found in Massachusetts when I decided to take up the study of cicadas after the Brood X emergence.

The problem with O. rimosa is that the male's calling song is high pitched and I was getting it confused with other types of insects that use stridulation to produce a sound. In insects it is usually legs against abdomens and is used for the purpose of signaling a mate.

O. rimosa seem to like to set up light aggregations in the trees of perhaps 5 or more clustered around a group of trees. When they start to sing, that is when it gets difficult to pin down their location.

Fortunately, the specimen that I captured was only 3 inches off the ground calling from a pine sapling that was perhaps only 15 inches high!! It was a true stroke of luck. These guys don't startle easily and was very easy for to capture it by hand. It is very small as well which makes it even more difficult to spot.

It is not much bigger than an M. cassini periodical cicada or Neocicada heiroglyhpica. It is definitely smaller than the Tibicens that is for sure except maybe T. aurifera.

It's like this great weight has been lifted off of me. After 4 years, I finally got one!! For the past three weekends, I have been going to this same area of western Massachusetts. It is a wildlife management area called the "Montague Plains". This area contains a lot of pitch pine, scrub oak and deciduous trees with sandy-soil - almost like beach sand kind of soil.

Since O. rimosa come out around the beginning of June, their time is almost up, I may have another two weekends to go back there and obtain more specimens.

In closing I feel it is important to also note that this specimen started calling in the jar in my house but it stopped before I could get a decent recording. It called around 11:00 pm at night under lights that I had set up for photographing. So yes they do call in captivity like Periodical Cicadas.