page_title: Thopha saccata
section_title: Distribution and habitat
hierarchical_section_title: Thopha saccata / Distribution and habitat
caption_attribution_description: English: Blackbutt at Dalrymple-Hay Nature Reserve, St Ives, NSW Australia
context_page_description: Thopha saccata, commonly known as the double drummer, is the largest Australian species of cicada and reputedly the loudest insect in the world. Documented by the Danish zoologist Johan Christian Fabricius in 1803, it was the first described and named cicada native to Australia. Its common name comes from the large dark red-brown sac-like pockets that the adult male has on each side of its abdomen—the "double drums"—that are used to amplify the sound it produces.
  Broad-headed compared with other cicadas, the double drummer is mostly brown with a black pattern across the back of its thorax, and has red-brown and black underparts. The sexes are similar in appearance, though the female lacks the male's tymbals and sac-like covers. Found in sclerophyll forest in Queensland and New South Wales, adult double drummers generally perch high in the branches of large eucalypts. They emerge from the ground where they have spent several years as nymphs from November until March, and live for another four to five weeks. They appear in great numbers in some years, yet are absent in others.
context_section_description: The double drummer has a disjunct distribution, found from northern tropical Queensland, near Shiptons Flat and Cooktown south to Ingham and Sarina, and then from Gympie in southeastern Queensland to Moruya in southern New South Wales. It is found in areas of higher elevation in the northern segment of its range, as the climate there is similar to that in southeast Queensland. Walter Wilson Froggatt and Robert John Tillyard erroneously included South Australia in its distribution.
  Adults are present from November to early March, prolific in some years and absent in others. They are found in dry sclerophyll forest, preferring to alight and feed on large eucalypts with diameters over 20 cm (7.9 in) and sparse foliage concentrated at a height between 10 and 25 m (33 and 82 ft), particularly rough-barked species, apples (Angophora) and Tristania. Associated trees include the grey box (Eucalyptus moluccana), snappy gum (E. racemosa) and narrow-leaved apple (Angophora bakeri) in a study at three sites in western Sydney. At Hawks Nest in coastal swampy sclerophyll woodland, adults were observed mainly on swamp mahogany (Eucalyptus robusta) and sometimes blackbutt (E. pilularis), as well as Allocasuarina littoralis and introduced pine (Pinus radiata). Nymphs feed primarily on the roots of eucalypts.
  The double drummer has not adapted well to city life; distribution of the species in cities is limited to natural stands of large trees.
caption: Blackbutt (Eucalyptus pilularis) in sclerophyll forest, Sydney
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