''Tanna japonensis'', also called the evening cicada or , is a

species A species () is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. It is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), ...

cicada The cicadas () are a superfamily, the Cicadoidea, of insects in the order Hemiptera (true bugs). They are in the suborder Auchenorrhyncha, along with smaller jumping bugs such as leafhoppers and froghoppers. The superfamily is divided into two ...

, a family of

insect Insects (from Latin ') are Hexapoda, hexapod invertebrates of the class (biology), class Insecta. They are the largest group within the arthropod phylum. Insects have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body (Insect morphology#Head, head, ...

s, and a member of the genus '' Tanna''. It is distributed throughout

East Asia East Asia is a geocultural region of Asia. It includes China, Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, and Taiwan, plus two special administrative regions of China, Hong Kong and Macau. The economies of Economy of China, China, Economy of Ja ...

, and is most common in Japan. Its shrill call can be heard most often in the morning and evening. One of its possible

kanji are logographic Chinese characters, adapted from Chinese family of scripts, Chinese script, used in the writing of Japanese language, Japanese. They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese and are ...

names (茅蜩) is derived from the character (茅) for a category of grasses that includes ''

Miscanthus sinensis ''Miscanthus sinensis'', the eulalia or Chinese silver grass, is a species of flowering plant in the grass family Poaceae, native to most of East Asia (China, Japan, Taiwan and Korea) and Southeast Asia (the Philippines, eastern Indonesia, Mala ...

'', a type of reed that it inhabits. In Japan, it is also known as because of the noise that it makes.

Characteristics

The adult male has a body length of , the female is . The male's abdomen is longer and thicker than that of the female, making it easy to distinguish between them. In addition, the intra-

abdominal cavity The abdominal cavity is a large body cavity in humans and many other animals that contain Organ (anatomy), organs. It is a part of the abdominopelvic cavity. It is located below the thoracic cavity, and above the pelvic cavity. Its dome-shaped roo ...

of the male is more developed, giving it a more

resonant Resonance is a phenomenon that occurs when an object or system is subjected to an external force or vibration whose frequency matches a resonant frequency (or resonance frequency) of the system, defined as a frequency that generates a maximu ...

call.

The body is coloured reddish-brown with green around the

compound eye A compound eye is a Eye, visual organ found in arthropods such as insects and crustaceans. It may consist of thousands of ommatidium, ommatidia, which are tiny independent photoreception units that consist of a cornea, lens (anatomy), lens, and p ...

and in the centre and back of the

thorax The thorax (: thoraces or thoraxes) or chest is a part of the anatomy of mammals and other tetrapod animals located between the neck and the abdomen. In insects, crustaceans, and the extinct trilobites, the thorax is one of the three main di ...

; mountain dwelling specimens tend to be darker.

Habitat

In Japan, their habitat ranges from

temperate In geography, the temperate climates of Earth occur in the middle latitudes (approximately 23.5° to 66.5° N/S of the Equator), which span between the tropics and the polar regions of Earth. These zones generally have wider temperature ran ...

Hokkaido is the list of islands of Japan by area, second-largest island of Japan and comprises the largest and northernmost prefectures of Japan, prefecture, making up its own list of regions of Japan, region. The Tsugaru Strait separates Hokkaidō fr ...

in the far north to

subtropical The subtropical zones or subtropics are geographical zone, geographical and Köppen climate classification, climate zones immediately to the Northern Hemisphere, north and Southern Hemisphere, south of the tropics. Geographically part of the Ge ...

Amami Ōshima , also known as Amami, is the largest island in the Amami Islands, Amami archipelago between Kyūshū and Okinawa Prefecture, Okinawa. It is one of the Satsunan Islands, all of which belong to Kagoshima Prefecture, Japan. The island, 712.35 ...

, close to

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia. The main geography of Taiwan, island of Taiwan, also known as ''Formosa'', lies between the East China Sea, East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocea ...

(variants and subspecies, such as ''T. j. ishigakiana''), and live in a wide range of habitats. They live in the

cypress Cypress is a common name for various coniferous trees or shrubs from the ''Cupressus'' genus of the '' Cupressaceae'' family, typically found in temperate climates and subtropical regions of Asia, Europe, and North America. The word ''cypress'' ...

cedar Cedar may refer to: Trees and plants *''Cedrus'', common English name cedar, an Old-World genus of coniferous trees in the plant family Pinaceae * Cedar (plant), a list of trees and plants known as cedar Places United States * Cedar, Arizona ...

, and

hardwood Hardwood is wood from Flowering plant, angiosperm trees. These are usually found in broad-leaved temperate and tropical forests. In temperate and boreal ecosystem, boreal latitudes they are mostly deciduous, but in tropics and subtropics mostl ...

forests, from the mountainous regions in Hokkaido to the plains of northern Kyūshū, and even in southern Kyushu, they can be found in slightly higher mountain elevations.

Ecology

The

parasitic Parasitism is a close relationship between species, where one organism, the parasite, lives (at least some of the time) on or inside another organism, the host, causing it some harm, and is adapted structurally to this way of life. The ent ...

moth Moths are a group of insects that includes all members of the order Lepidoptera that are not Butterfly, butterflies. They were previously classified as suborder Heterocera, but the group is Paraphyly, paraphyletic with respect to butterflies (s ...

Epipomponia nawai ''Epipomponia nawai'' is a moth in the Epipyropidae family. It was described by Harrison Gray Dyar Jr. in 1904. It is found in Japan, Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia. The main geography of ...

'' uses the animal as a host for its eggs. The ''T. japonensis'' can also come under attack from

flesh flies Sarcophagidae () are a family of flies commonly known as flesh flies. They differ from most flies in that they are ovoviviparous, opportunistically depositing hatched or hatching maggots instead of eggs on carrion, dung, decaying material, or op ...

Call

The peak time for hearing ''T. japonensis'' is autumn, but they can also be heard at the end of summer in some regions. From September until mid-October, their calls can be heard almost every day. The males call with a distinctive, melancholy sound. This occurs before sunrise, and they often sing at twilight or after sunset, in dusk, when the temperature has dropped, or when it becomes cloudy. The call changes with temperature, being correlated with the firing rate of the

tymbal The tymbal (or timbal) is the corrugated exoskeletal structure used to produce sounds in insects. In male cicadas, the tymbals are membranes in the abdomen, responsible for the characteristic sound produced by the insect. In tiger moths, the t ...

nerve A nerve is an enclosed, cable-like bundle of nerve fibers (called axons). Nerves have historically been considered the basic units of the peripheral nervous system. A nerve provides a common pathway for the Electrochemistry, electrochemical nerv ...

. page 113 In Japan, the sound is popularly associated with melancholy, and it has been the subject of literature, and television shows, such as "Summer Evening" and , feature it as a sound effect or a plot point. Their calls are quite loud, but do not carry well over distance.

Subspecies

''T. j. ishigakiana'' is found in Ishigaki, an island in

Okinawa most commonly refers to: * Okinawa Prefecture, Japan's southernmost prefecture * Okinawa Island, the largest island of Okinawa Prefecture * Okinawa Islands, an island group including Okinawa itself * Okinawa (city), the second largest city in th ...

. Though once listed on the

red list The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, also known as the IUCN Red List or Red Data Book, founded in 1964, is an inventory of the global conservation status and extinction risk of biological sp ...

, they are no longer thought to be endangered. Their cry is a more metallic sound with a faster tempo.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q1036339 Tanna (genus) Hemiptera of Asia Insects described in 1892