Tettigettula pygmea (Olivier, 1790)

Trilar, Tomi, Gjonov, Ilia & Gogala, Matija, 2020, Checklist and provisional atlas of singing cicadas (Hemiptera: Cicadidae) of Bulgaria, based on bioacoustics, Biodiversity Data Journal 8, pp. 54424-54424 : 54424

Tettigettula pygmea (Olivier, 1790)

Distribution

General distribution: Southern Europe: Albania, Austria ( Schedl 2004), Croatia, France, Greece, Italy (including Sicily ( Hertach 2011)), North Macedonia, Romania, Serbia ( Horváth 1903, Janković 1966, Janković 1975, Gogala and Trilar 2016), Slovenia (all data except for the countries with the citation in brackets are summarised by Duffels and van der Laan 1985 and Sanborn 2014).

It was not found in Spain ( Puissant 2006, Puissant and Sueur 2010) and on the eastern side of Rechinger’s line in the Aegean Sea ( Gogala and Trilar 2014), which represents the zoogeographical border between the European and Asian fauna.

Distribution in Bulgaria: Tettigettula pygmea was found for the first time in Bulgaria at three localities in Strandzha Mt. (Fig. 60 ) with an altitude distribution between the sea level and 200 m (18-146 m a.s.l.) (Fig. 61 ).

Notes

Acoustic behaviour: The song was described by Boulard (1995), Popov et al. (1997), Gogala (2002) and Puissant and Sueur (2010).

The calling song consists of two phrases with repeating patterns (Figs 62 , 63 ). In the first phrase (duration 250-500 ms), the long echeme (duration 175 ± 41 ms) is usually followed by 2-4 short echemes (duration 5-6 ms) (Fig. 62 ). The second phrase (duration 320-560 ms) also consists of a long echeme (duration 273 ± 41 ms), followed by one longer short echeme (duration 60 ± 6 ms) or without it (30% of the phrases) (Fig. 63 ) ( Popov et al. 1997). Sequences of the first phrase can change to the second phrase without interruption ( Popov et al. 1997, Gogala 2002). The main energy of both singing patterns is between 15 and 25 kHz, mainly in inaudible ultrasound (Figs 62 , 63 ), therefore the use of an ultrasonic detector is appropriate ( Popov et al. 1997, Gogala 2002).

Selected sound samples of Tettigettula pygmea are available on the web pages Songs of the European singing cicadas ( Gogala 2020).

Materials: Suppl. material 14

Diagnosis

Tettigettula pygmea (Fig. 59 ) is the smallest European singing cicada. It sings in the high frequency range (i.e. Popov et al. 1997), usually high up in the tree canopies, especially in oaks ( Gogala 2002), usually higher than 2 m ( Puissant 2006). Only in some areas are the shrubs predominantly populated. The species inhabit warm Mediterranean vegetation ( Puissant 2006).

Figures

Figure 59. Tettigettula pygmea male.

Figure 60. Map with localities of Tettigettula pygmea in Bulgaria. Red - bioacoustic data collected in this survey.

Figure 61. Altitudinal distribution of Tettigettula pygmea. The percentage of the recorded localities is displayed in 200 - metre altitude zones.

Figure 62. First phrase of the calling song of Tettigettula pygmea. (A) spectrogram and oscillogram of the selected part of the first phrase of the calling song; (B) oscillogram of the enlarged part corresponding to the inverted window in (A).

Figure 63. Second phrase of the calling song of Tettigettula pygmea. (A) spectrogram and oscillogram of the selected part of the second phrase of the calling song; (B) oscillogram of the enlarged part corresponding to the inverted window in (A).