Quesada gigas (Olivier, 1790)

Acosta, Riuler C., Timm, Vítor F., Zefa, Edison, da Costa, Maria K. M., Ruschel, Tatiana P., Lopes, Dimitrius A. R. & Kaminski, Lucas A., 2025, Pampa singers: an acoustic and visual guide to singing insects (Orthoptera and Hemiptera), Journal of Natural History 59 (21 - 24), pp. 1541-1589 : 1552-1553

Quesada gigas (Olivier, 1790) (Giant-cicada)

Flying song

Not observed.

Calling song

It presents two distinct sections. The first consists of a series of short echemmes, totalling 41.75 ± 16.9 (32–67) in all, gradually intensifying (dB) and reducing the interval time from 0.07 ± 0.008 (0.07–0.09) to much smaller values towards the end of this part. The second part is a long echemme lasting 8.7 ± 2.3 (6.2–11.5) seconds. Quite common in late afternoons and early mornings, this cicada currently exhibits the lowest frequency values documented for Neotropical cicadas. It also produces sounds in broad-range frequency, with F1 at 1.8 ± 0.23 (1.7–2.1), F2 at 4.34 ± 0.05 (4.3–4.4), and F3 at 6.4 ± 0.05 (6.4–6.5).

Stress call

Not recorded.

Collection site

Porto Alegre , Partenon district, near the Pontifícia Universidade Católica ( PUCRS) . The cicada was collected and recorded on 14 January 2020, at 7 pm, with a temperature of 27° C. The Giant-cicada is a canopy-dwelling organism, produces sounds, and is more active between 6 to 7 am and 6 to 7 pm ( Figures 4A and 5J ).

Remarks

The calling sound has been previously described by Sueur (2001, 2002) and Maccagnan (2008).

Figures

Figure 4. Songs of Fidicinini and Zammarini cicadas. (A) Calling song of Quesada gigas (Olivier, 1790). (B) Calling song of Tympanoterpes sp. (C) Stress call of Tympanoterpes sp. (D) Calling song of Zammara tympanum (Fabricius, 1803). (E) Stress call of Zammara tympanum (Fabricius, 1803).

Figure 5. Visual guide of Pampa cicadas with songs recorderd. (A) Carineta diardi (Guérin-Méneville, 1829). (B) Guaranisaria llanoi Torres, 1964. (C) Parnisa sp. (D) Acanthoventris charrua Ruschel, 2023. (E) Guyalna bonaerensis (Berg, 1879). (F) Guyalna viridifemur (Walker, 1850). (G) Pompanonia sp. (H) Proarna montevidensis Berg, 1882. (I) Proarna uruguayensis Berg, 1882. (J) Quesada gigas (Olivier, 1790). (K) Tympanoterpes sp. (L) Zammara tympanum (Fabricius, 1803). Bar: 1cm. Photos by Riuler Corrêa Acosta.