Predation
Bird predation of the adult cicada is common, with wrens and White-shafted Fantails, Noisy Miners, Grey Butcherbirds, Pied Butcherbirds, Magpie-larks, Torresian Crows, Blue-faced Honeyeaters, Brush Wattlebirds, White-faced Herons, and even the nocturnal Tawny Frogmouth all reported as significant predators. The Tawny Frogmouths, and Bearded Dragons (a large lizard) have been noted feeding on emerging nymphs, but total nymphal mortality is estimated at under 10%.
The adults of some Australian cicada species are also subject to a cicada-specific fungus from the genus Massospora which affects their genitalia and abdominal cavity. Australian cicadas are also preyed on by the cicada killer wasp (Exeirus lateritius), which stings and paralyses cicadas high in the trees. Their victims drop to the ground where the cicada-hunter mounts and carries them, pushing with its hind legs, sometimes over a distance of 100 meters, until they can be shoved down into its burrow, where the numb cicada is placed onto one of many shelves in a 'catacomb', to form the food-stock for the wasp grub that grows out of the egg deposited there.
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