Cicada from Australia: maybe Golden Drummer???

bugman

March 5th, 2010 at 8:07 pm

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Found him on campsite near the beach in Summer
March 5, 2010
Hello, i have just came back from a year down under and have some amazing pics of some of the strangest bugs and animals and insects i have ever seen. But there’s one in particular that we have to find out what it is. He found us on our campsite in Broome, Western Australia last Christmas, that’s there summer.
He was attacked by a bird and was shocked and we saved him. He stayed very still for maybe 20mins and then very loudly flew away happy to be breathing I’d imagine.
We traveled all of Australia and only ever came across this guy once. Maybe he’s native to the West Coast. Other than that i can’t say much more about him, I hope you guys can end our confusion, thanks.
Ozbug
Broome, Western Australia

cicada australia ozbug 300x215 Cicada from Australia: maybe Golden Drummer???

Possibly Golden Drummer Cicada

Hi Ozbug,
This is a Cicada, and there are over 200 different species in Australia. We could not locate an exact match for yours, and the angle of view is not ideal to see the markings, but your Cicada looks similar to the Golden Drummer Cicada, Thopha colorata. We found a nice photo on Flickr. Perhaps one of our readers will be able to verify or correct our identification.