Black sorrow cicada
Cicadatra atra
The black sorrow cicada is a dark cicada from warm, sunny places in southern Europe and nearby Asia. In summer the males sing loud, steady songs. You often hear it long before you see it.
Lives in
Southern Europe, Turkey, Cyprus and Syria, on dry rocky and bushy slopes
Can it hurt you?
Harmless
Harmless. Cicadas do not bite or sting people.
What does it eat?
Like other cicadas, it drinks sap from plants through a mouth shaped like a straw.
How fast is it?
A person walking about 5 km/h (3.1 mph)
Black sorrow cicada about 12 km/h (7.5 mph)
A kid running fast about 13 km/h (8.1 mph)
A grown-up on a bike about 25 km/h (16 mph)
cool stuff
Fun facts
1
Only the males sing. They do it to call the females.
2
It likes dry, rocky and bushy places, such as mountain slopes and bushes by the sea.
3
It lives in many countries around the Mediterranean, from France and Spain to Greece, Turkey and Syria.
you asked
Most asked questions about Black sorrow cicada
?Why do cicadas make noise?
The males sing loud songs in summer to attract females.
?Is the black cicada dangerous?
No. Cicadas do not bite or sting people.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Cicadatra atra
- Group
- True bugs and cicadas
- Family
- Cicadidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Hemiptera > Cicadidae
- Lives on
- Europe, Asia
- Also known as
- Black cicada
Where the facts come from
- Cicadatra atra (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
- Picture by Trilar T, Gjonov I, Gogala M (2020) Checklist and provisional atlas of singing cicadas (Hemiptera: Cicadidae) of Bulgaria, based on bioacoustics. Biodiversity D. CC BY 4.0, Wikimedia Commons. The sticker of this bug is drawn from this picture.
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