On the trail of mountain cicadas

Description

Ancient Greeks, having lived in close contact with nature, also closely observed the behaviour of cicadas, which were so common in summer all over Greece. They found that only males sing loudly, not to say deafeningly, but not the females. And as some of them -a case in point being Socrates- had painful experience obliged to listen to their chatty wives all the time, the poet Xenarchus exclaimed: “Happy the Cicadas live, since they all have voiceless wives.” Nevertheless, this book is a magnificent picture of nymphs, females and males Cicadidae and their environments, as well as of their sacrificed researchers´ joyous lives, intrigantly devoted to alcoholism as the book sorrily seems to warn. Cover......Page 1 Contents......Page 4 Preface......Page 6 Scopoli's Cicada montana......Page 8 Introduction......Page 11 Tom Moore and an encounter with seventeen-year periodical cicadas......Page 14 A brief overview of cicadas (Hemiptera: Cicadidae)......Page 16 The charm of tropical cicadas......Page 21 A "well-explored" Europe......Page 24 Bioacoustic research of cicadas in Slovenia and Croatia......Page 28 Where is the mountain cicada?......Page 30 The use of ultrasound detectors and other electronic equipment......Page 35 Tomi becomes a cicada enthusiast......Page 40 A review paper on the cicadas of Slovenia......Page 42 The Andrej Kapla phenomenon......Page 44 A new species of "mountain cicada" is discovered in Macedonia......Page 47 The French and the Pyrenean cicada (Cicadetta cerdaniensis)......Page 50 Which cicada, then, is the Scopoli's Cicada montana?......Page 54 Tomi finds the third species in Slovenia - is it the "Pyrenean"?......Page 57 Visits to Poland......Page 59 New discoveries in Macedonia......Page 67 The paper in the Brazilian Annals......Page 71 The cicadas from mount Parnassus that squat and sing on the ground......Page 75 Sakis and the first two cicada field trips to Greece......Page 77 Field trip to Montenegro in 2005......Page 81 The second field trip to Greece and a new species......Page 84 The third field trip to Greece and the limit 40 degrees north......Page 88 What of Crete?......Page 91 The island of Eubea, Euboea, Euboia or Evia......Page 95 Three mountains and four new species......Page 97 Iran 2007......Page 107 The fifth cicadafield trip to Greece: surprises in the northeast of Greece......Page 111 The first field trip to Romania in 2004......Page 114 Baile Herculane 2008......Page 117 Bulgaria 2008......Page 120 Bulgaria 2009......Page 123 Bulgaria 2010 and 2012......Page 129 The Swiss Thomas Hertach......Page 133 Revisiting the island of Evia in the seasons 2010 to 2012......Page 137 Via Skaloula to the island of Kefalonia......Page 145 Humboldt grant after 46 years......Page 150 Peloponnese 2012......Page 153 Song groups, phylogeny, cladistics and molecular research......Page 155 How many mountain cicadas are there and where are they distributed?......Page 159 Acknowledgements......Page 164 Litarature......Page 165 Afterword......Page 171 Names of the cicadas mentioned in the text, and their synonyms......Page 174