So far I've recorded five species from the living room window: brown leaf cicada (Lembeja vitticollis), northern greengrocer (Cyclochila virens), a small green one that I'm not really sure about, and the two I photographed today.
The frog cicada (Venustria superba) is a laid back insect that sits on tree trunks in the middle of the forest and makes a croaking noise like a frog. Although it doesn't look like much from these photos, it certainly lives up to the specific epithet superba. The wings have a bronze sheen and the head and body are a patriotic green and gold. The monotypic genus* is endemic to the Queensland Wet Tropics.
Filiform antenna, the typical form in cicadasThe second species was a little more difficult to identify, but I think I've got it. Psaltoda antennetta doesn't have a common name, perhaps because it was only described in 2002. What characterizes this species is the shape of the antennae — each antenna is expanded (foliate) towards the tip. Psaltoda is another Australian endemic genus, with a number of species occurring along the east coast in all wooded habitats.
Foliate antenna characteristic of this speciesBoth species have similar distributions, occurring in forest from Mt Hartley, near Cooktown south to the Kirrama Range (Venustria) and Mt Fox (P. antennetta). They are also about the same size, with a forewing length of between 30 and 40 mm.
Both of these individuals had red erythraeid mites attached to them.
Venustria superba
Psaltoda antennetta________
* A monotypic genus contains only one species
References
Moulds, M.S. (1990). Australian Cicadas. New South Wales University Press, Kensington, NSW.
Moulds, M.S. (2002). Three new species of Psaltoda Stal from eastern Australia (Hemiptera: Cicadoidea: Cicadidae). Records of the Australian Museum 54: 325–334.
