Cyclochila australasiae, commonly known as the green grocer, is a species of cicada and one of Australia's most familiar insects. It is distributed through coastal regions of southeastern Australia. It is one of the loudest insects in the world.
Taxonomy
Cyclochila australasiae was formerly commonly known as the Great Green Cicada; in addition, the various colour forms have different vernacular names, including Yellow Monday for a common yellow morph; Chocolate Soldier for a rare dark tan form; Blue Moon for a rare turquoise form; and Masked Devil for its red-orange form. The names for the green and yellow forms have been recorded since at least 1896. Walter Wilson Froggatt reported that the green form was known as green Monday in his 1907 work Australian Insects. The species was first described by amateur zoologist Edward Donovan as Tettigonia australasiae in 1805, while Ernst Friedrich Germar named it Cicada olivacea in 1830.
Description
Cyclochila australasiae measures about 4 cm in length, with a wingspan of 11–13 cm. Diverse colour forms are seen, the most common being predominantly green or brownish yellow. It has red eyes. The exuvia, or discarded empty exoskeleton of the nymph form, is commonly seen on tree trunks in gardens and bushland during the summer months. The loud calls of the male are heard over the summer months; harsh and high-pitched, these may reach 120 decibels. The sound is made by the rapid buckling of the timbal ribs, and amplified by resonation in an air sac; the frequency is around 4.3 kHz. Calls occur in the afternoon and dusk of warm days.
The cicada spends seven years in nymph form drinking sap from plant roots underground before emerging from the earth as an adult. The adults, who live for six weeks, fly around, mate, and breed over the summer.
Live cicadas are often collected by climbing trees and can be kept temporarily as pets in shoeboxes. They cannot easily be kept for longer than a day or two, given that they need flowing sap for food. The Green grocer cicada is now the topic of a popular Australian children's book, "Cecil Singer Cicada" released in January 2020. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hk_Ixi7RHX0 The Yellow Monday form is referenced in Clive James' epic poem "The River in the Sky".
