Gaeana atkinsoni

Gaeana atkinsoni is a colourful cicada species and is the only member of the genus Gaeana that is found in southern India. Other species are found along the Himalayas and in Southeast Asia. It is endemic to the forests of the Western Ghats where it emerges in summer. Males are brightly coloured with a yellow and black forewing and a bright red hindwing that is visible in flight.[1]

Gaeana atkinsoni
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Insecta
Order: Hemiptera
Family: Cicadidae
Subfamily: Cicadinae
Tribe: Gaeanini
Genus: Gaeana
Species:
G. atkinsoni
Binomial name
Gaeana atkinsoni
Distant, 1889
Gaeana atkinsoni at Zoologische Staatssammlung München

The species was described by William Lucas Distant in 1889 based on a specimen obtained from Karwar by E.T. Atkinson and named after the collector who was also accountant-general of Bengal and a president of the board of trustees of the Indian Museum at Calcutta.[2] The colourful wing patterns are thought to mimic toxic moths and a possible model suggested is Pangora.[3]

References
  1. Distant, W. L. (1892). A monograph of Oriental Cicadidae. Calcutta: Indian Museum. p. 107.
  2. Distant, W.L. (1889). "Descriptions of a new Genus and some new Species of Cicadidae belonging to the Oriental Region". Annals and Magazine of Natural History. 6: 49–53.
  3. Green, E. Ernest (1911). "Remarkable mimetic resemblance between a cicadid and an Arctiid moth". J. Bombay Nat. Hist. Soc. 20 (3): 882–883.
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