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Magicicada septendecim, sometimes called the
Pharaoh cicada, is a species of periodical cicada with a 17-year life cycle, native to Canada and the United States. First described by Carl Linnaeus in 1758, based on specimens sent to him by the Swedish botanist
Pehr KalmPehr Kalm was a Swedish-Finnish explorer, botanist, naturalist, and agricultural economist. He was one of most important apostles of Carl Linnaeus...
, it is the largest and most northern of the three known species of 17-year cicadas.
Like other species included in
Magicicada, its eyes and wing veins are reddish and its dorsal thorax is black. It is distinguished by broad orange stripes on its abdomen and a unique high-pitched song said to resemble someone calling "weeeee-whoa" or "Pharaoh," features it shares with the newly discovered 13-year species
Magicicada neotredecimMagicicada neotredecim is the most recently discovered species of periodical cicada. Like all Magicicada species, M. neotredicim has reddish eyes and wing veins and a black dorsal thorax. It has a 13-year life cycle but seems to be most closely related to the 17-year species Magicicada septendecim...
.
Because of similarities between
M. septendecim and the two closely related 13-year species
M. neotredecim and
M. tredecimMagicicada tredecim is a 13-year species of periodical cicada, closely related to the newly discovered 13-year species Magicicada neotredecim, from which it differs in its in male song pitch, female song pitch preferences, abdomen color, and mitochondrial DNA. Both M. tredecim and M. neotredecim...
, the three species are often described together as "
decim periodical cicadasDecim periodical cicadas is a term used to group three closely related species of periodical cicadas: Magicicada septendecim, Magicicada tredecim, and Magicicada neotredecim. M. septendecim, first described by Linnaeus, has a 17-year lifecycle; the name "septendecim" is Latin for 17. M...
."