Tibicen tibicen subsp. australis Davis

Tibicen tibicen australis (Davis) (Figs. 73, 139–147)

Rihana sayi var. australis Davis 1912: 261. Type locality: Spring Creek, Decatur County, Georgia. Although Davis (1912) lists several locations in the species description, the male specimen labeled “ type ” in the Staten Island Institute of Arts and Sciences was collected in Spring Creek.

The subspecies has a primarily green mesonotum, pronotum and pronotal collar with reduced black markings (fig. 140) instead of the black and fulvous areas on the pronotum and mesonotum (fig. 131) of T. t. tibicen (Davis 1912). It is commonly known as Tibicen chloromerus australis (Davis) but, as noted above, Tibicen sayi, and thus its subspecies, is now a junior synonym of T. tibicen (L.) (Sanborn 2008).

The subspecies T. tibicen australis first emerges in mid-May and can be heard singing until late October or early November. The most common collection dates are in late July and early August. No analysis of the song has been published but it has similar characteristics to that of the nominotypical subspecies (personal observation).

The subspecies Tibicen tibicen australis has been collected more often than T. t. tibicen in Florida. The 29 counties from which the subspecies has been recorded are Alachua, Bay, Brevard, Calhoun, Dixie, Duval, Gadsden, Hardee, Hendry, Highlands, Hillsborough, Indian River, Jackson, Jefferson, Leon, Levy, Liberty, Marion, Nassau, Okaloosa, Orange, Pasco, Putnam, Santa Rosa, Seminole, Suwannee, Union, Volusia, and Wakulla. The species is found in the Southeastern Plains and Southern Coastal Plains ecoregions. However, the overlap in the distributions of the two subspecies (Fig. 73) and similar calls suggest that they may be simply color morphs.