Types of cicadas in Kelowna

Main:  Rocky Mountain cicada.  Inset:  Canadian (Somber?) cicada.  Both found in Kelowna, BC.

There are about 20 species of cicada found in Canada; of those, only 3 are commonly found in the Kelowna area.  These include the Rocky Mountain cicada, the Canadian cicada, and Say's cicada.  Of the three of them, I have caught and photographed two.  I have never seen the Say's species.  You can read about them in my blogs here and here.

Cicadas typically cause no significant damage to mature trees.  Newly planted trees and shrubs may be at risk, though, as they do extract a lot of low-nutrient sap from the roots' xylem.  The cicadas' bodies remove what valuable nutrients there are and excrete the rest.  

Another interesting fact about cicadas is that they are not stationary throughout their larval development.  They move constantly, going lower in the soil for winter and moving from place to place for feeding.  They moult a total of 4 times before pupating.  The three species of cicada in the Kelowna area are periodic; that is they live a minimum of 2 years before becoming adults.  They are not the ones we hear about down in the States that have the 13 and 17 year lifecycles.

All kinds of things eat the adults.  The cicadas typically emerge together in a very short window and there are thousands of them.  One site describes the cicada bloom a "bug buffet."  The nymphs, which are underground, are a different story, as they are only available to predators that can find them and dig them out.  Certain beetle species (ground beetles, for example), skunks, and moles can find and eat them, the moles being perhaps their worst enemy.  A mole may eat its body weight in insects each day.

As a rule of thumb, cicadas do not hurt the vegetation they feed on and are valuable insects that support the development of many other animals.  They are an important part of our ecosystems.

Thanks for reading.

Eric Svendsen     www.ericspix.com

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