The Bliven Conundrum

In 1964 an entomologist name Bliven published a paper describing 6 new species of Okanagana "endemic" to California". Holotypes and a couple paratypes of each were deposited, and then the species were promptly forgotten about as nobody else had ever seen them.
O. rhadine
O. orithya
O. pernix
O. sequoiae

O. salicicola
O. vocalis

Cut to 53 years later when a chance discovery led us to believe that maybe Bliven was not quite as... off... as he had seemed: One of the species was rediscovered. The details on that are currently private, but it gave rise to the obvious question: if one, why no the rest. That brings us to 2020, when @birdernaturalist found this individual while helping collect cicadas:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/55435090 An individual that is quite likely O. sequoiae! Further examination will be necessary to confirm it. However, this is from Eugene, OR, not northern California, and as though the very dim bulb that lives in my head went on for a change, it occurred to me to ask "what if he just badly mistook the range of his species?". Rather than endemic to northern California, what if that was the southern part of the range of a mostly Oregon group of species.

This led to a quest. Was another Bliven species already on iNaturalist just waiting to be identified. As it turns out, it was. @umpquamatt photographed this individual of Okanagana rhadine 3 years ago.

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/7247167

And as though the cosmic cicada forces came together, yesterday a friend in Eugene collected one! Now 3 were down, and there were 3 to go. When will they appear I don't know, but I no longer doubt that they will!

Posted on August 14, 2020 02:02 AM by