Mountain and Putnam's cicadas are most easily distinguished by their calls, but other characters will distinguish them. The shrill calls are produced by tymbals, a pair of organs in the abdomen, each composed of a ribbed membrane that, when deformed 50 times per second by abdominal muscles, makes numerous clicks, the sound we hear as a shrill buzz. These calls are loud if one is within a few feet of a calling male, but not nearly as loud as the periodic cicadas. Its song is a shrill buzz that lasts from ten seconds to two minutes. Mountain cicadas, Okanagana bella, are also found locally, and it is the only cicada common in the mountains, from the lower edge of the ponderosa pine forest to 10,000 feet. Males call or sing to attract females and females signal acceptance by returning his call with their wings.Ī Putnam's cicada calls from a cottonwood twig cut numerous times to insert eggs below the bark. They produce their call by clapping their wings against their abdomens or the branch that they are perched on. Its soft, tapping song is typical for species in the genus Platypedia, which are sometimes referred to as wing banger cicadas. Putnam's cicada, Platypedia putnami, is the most common in town and in lower foothills sites such as Gregory Canyon and Flagstaff Mountain. Only two species are common locally, and adults of both species appear each spring, so they are referred to as annual cicadas. Twenty-nine species of cicadas occur in Colorado, and their life cycles, which are also their generations, range from two to five years. But none of the periodic cicadas are found west of the Great Plains. The periodic cicadas can be very loud-sounds have been measured in excess of 100 decibels, which is the pain threshold for human ears, and some choruses have been heard from a distance of 1.5 miles. Once above ground, males gather in a tree to form choruses to call and females come to the chorus tree to mate. Densities of 1.5 million per acre have been reported for 17-year cicadas. Their life cycles or generations are very long, either 13 or 17 years spent sucking sap from the roots of deciduous trees, then a climactic emergence that resembles an eruption. The word 'cicada' usually brings to mind the seven species of periodic cicadas native to the east coast and the eastern edge of the Great Plains. Only two species are common locally, and adults of both species appear each spring, so they are referred to as annual cicadas.'

Cicada predators