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Sticker of East Aegean cicada
Bug card No. 1453 of 4,939

East Aegean cicada

Cicada mordoganensis
Name means: “Cicada is Latin for buzzer, and mordoganensis comes from Mordoğan, a seaside town in Turkey where it was first found”
Eats: PlantsTrue bugs and cicadasForests and woods6 legs

The East Aegean cicada is a big cicada from the coast of Turkey and the Greek islands. The males sit in olive trees and pine trees and sing very loudly. Often many of them sing together like a noisy choir.

Lives in
The west coast of Turkey and nearby Greek islands, in olive trees and pines
Length
3.9 to 4.7 cm (1.5 to 1.9 in)
Top speed
about 14 km/h (8.7 mph)
Flying, estimate
Can it hurt you?
Harmless
Harmless. It can be very loud, but it does not bite or sting.
What does it eat?
Like other cicadas, it drinks sap from trees through its sharp, straw-like mouth.
For real!Photo of East Aegean cicada
Picture by (c) Rainer Breitling, some rights reserved (CC BY). CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

How big is it?

How long is it?

East Aegean cicada about 4.7 cm long (1.9 in)A toy building brick about 3.2 cm (1.3 in)A crayon about 9 cm (3.5 in)A banana about 18 cm (7.1 in)
as long as 8 grains of rice in a rowcould fly across a whole football pitch in 27 secondsmoves 83 times its own body length every second

How big is East Aegean cicada compared to YOU?

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How fast is it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

1

Its song sounds different from the songs of its closest cousins.

2

It lives on many Greek islands, such as Rhodes, Samos and Kos, and on part of Crete.

3

Scientists think it became its own kind after it got cut off from its cousins by land and sea.

4

Males and females are about the same size, around 4 to 4.7 cm long.

you asked

Most asked questions about East Aegean cicada

?Is the East Aegean cicada dangerous?

No. It is loud, but it does not bite or sting.

?Why are cicadas so loud?

The males sing to call females, and many of them often sing together at the same time.

For bug experts

Scientific name
Cicada mordoganensis
Group
True bugs and cicadas
Family
Cicadidae
Classification
Insecta > Hemiptera > Cicadidae
Lives on
Asia, Europe

Where the facts come from

  1. Cicada mordoganensis (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
  2. Picture by (c) Rainer Breitling, some rights reserved (CC BY). CC BY 4.0, Wikimedia Commons. The sticker of this bug is drawn from this picture.

If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.

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More from the same group: True bugs and cicadas

Also at home here: Forests and woods

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