willc-t
Will Chatfield-Taylor Curator
Joined: Apr 6, 2017 Last Active: May 6, 2024 iNaturalist
***If I've been doing a ton of changes to your observations to Tibicinoides from Okanagana, that's because when our prior ID's were made, this group was still in Okanagana. The taxa I've changed are now in the genus Tibicinoides.
Hi all,
I am an entomologist currently working to revise the cicada genus Okanagana and learn more about their bioacoustics and how it relates to species interactions an evolution.
My friend/colleague and I are trying to collect specimens to use both for DNA extraction and as reference material. I have been working with the iNaturalist community since 2019 to help acquire species we never could have come into contact with. I set up the Okanagana Citizen Science Project to explain in more detail what we are doing and give various updates.
BIG NEWS: Jeff Cole, Elliott Smeds, John Cooley and Caressa Wong and myself finally published our massive cicada phylogeny and genera revision!
https://www.mapress.com/zt/article/view/zootaxa.5346.5.1
If there are any of you with Okanagana specimens and would be willing to donate them to our research it would be greatly appreciated. Please contact me via iNaturalist and I'll send you my email directly (not that it is particularly hard to find).
Some of the taxa we are looking for: (Those crossed off have been contributed by the iNaturalist community)
O. arboraria
O. arctostaphylae The story of how this was red-discovered by a member of iNaturalist after over 100 years was featured by iNaturalist!
O. aurantiaca - Who knew researchers were photographing a random cicada in Baja. And it turned out to be this. We have the location now... and now some DNA. Now to get some specimens
O. balli
O. canadensis - this is now O. noveboracensis
T. catalina (with permit)
O. fratercula
O. fumipennis
O. formosa- Another recent find by my advisor
O. georgi (AZ)
O. hirsuta (Santa Rosa Island, Channel Islands) (This requires a very special permit)
O. gibbera
T. hesperia
O. lurida = O. occidentalis
O. mariposa oregonensis
O. magnifica
O. noveboracensis
O. occidentalis
O. ornata
O. rhadine
O. rimosa
O. salicicola
O. schaefferi
O. sequoiae
O. sperata (CA)
O. sugdeni - A series of these were just collected from Utah at the type locality!
O. synodica
O. tanneri
O. tristis
T. uncinata
T. utahensis
T. vanduzeei
O. villosa (Sierra Nevadas at alpine locations, very hairy)
O. vocalis
O. yakimaensis (Yakima Valley, WA)
Tibicinoides cupreosparsa
If I've reached out to you about a sighting you have found, it's because it is something that could truly be of scientific value to us.
We will send the necessary shipping material with return postage to make things as easy as possible.
After the last four years, and working with so many of you, I cannot express the gratitude I have for the wonderful people here in the iNaturalist community. With your help we have been able to fill in many gaps in our the species we need to complete our work. Not just of things that we couldn't get to without you, but some things we had just scratched off the list as "It's not going to happen". I'm looking forward to working with you all again this year!
For those interested/still reading
My prior education is in biology and Geographic Information Systems, and I apply both of them in my research. I'm always interested in collaborating, especially to help make maps for other scientists. When not doing research I am an avid birder and spend my remaining time out and about.
*In general the non-cicada insects I post are those that have had determinations by experts in their field. I include these determinations in the description. If there is no determination then it was probably ID'd by me and needs to be taken with a grain of salt. Okanagana are the same way: you may see me add/retract an ID (or multiple ID's) multiple times on a single observation until I'm satisfied one way or another (which may be to keep it at genus level indefinitely). the majority of my non-cicada insect records are on Bugguide.net
Selected Publications:
Cole, J.A., Chatfield-Taylor, W., Smeds, E.A., Cooley, J.R., Gonzalez, V.A., and Wong, C. 2023. Phylogeny
of North America’s largest cicada radiation redefines Tibicinoides and Okanagana (Hemiptera:
Auchenorrhyncha: Cicadidae: Tibicininae). Zootaxa 5346 (5): 501-531. https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.5346.5.1
Chatfield-Taylor, W. and Cole, J. A. 2020. A new species of Okanagana from the Walker Lane region of Nevada and California (Hemiptera: Auchenorrhyncha: Cicadidae). Zootaxa 4868 (4): 515-530.
Chatfield-Taylor, W. 2020. Predator avoidance leads to separate emergence cycles in the protoperiodical Okanagana magnifica Davis, 1919 (Hemiptera: Cicadidae). Pan-Pacific Entomologist 96(3): 1-7.
Chatfield-Taylor, W. and Cole, J.A. 2019. Noisy neighbors among the selfish herd: mate recognition within
cicada emergences mediated by a critical song distance (Hemiptera: Auchenorrhyncha: Cicadidae: Okanagana). Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 128(4): 854-864.
Chatfield-Taylor, W. and Cole, J.A. 2017. Living rain gauges: cumulative precipitation
explains the emergence schedules of California protoperiodical cicadas. Ecology 98: 2521-2527.
Cole, J. A. and Chatfield-Taylor, W. 2012. Orchelimum superbum (Orthoptera: Tettigoniidae: Conocephalinae) in the Great Plains of North America. Journal of Orthoptera Research: 21: 45-50.
