The Bug of the Day is the leafhopper. These attractive, slender, multicolored insects are often abundant on plants where they can feed by sucking the sap. This causes wilting and injury to grape, apple, clover, beet and other plants. Besides, leafhoppers carry virus diseases from plant to plant and thus become serious pests. Leafhoppers exude "honeydew" as they feed. This is a somewhat sweet surplus sap which attracts ants and bees, which feed on it. Leafhoppers are well known as prodigious jumpers. They are sometimes called dodgers because of the way they slip out of sight when disturbed. The female lays eggs in stems and leaves. Two or more generations are produced each year. Late eggs winter over and hatch in spring. Adults hibernate and emerge in spring also. The young that hatch resemble the adults and pass through 4 or 5 nymph stages before they mature. Leafhopper populations in fields may reach as high as a million per acre. Of some 2,000 known species, about 700 are found in the United States.
Boy those Dodgers are serious pests.
ReplyDeleteI have a suggestion for your blog. Can you include the photo of the day in your posts too? That way it would always stay with the description even when your main photo changed.
ReplyDeleteI loved learning about leafhoppers though!
Leaf Hoppers are amazing, thank you for all the information. What do you know about japanese beetles or stink bugs?
ReplyDeleteI don't think I'll be doing the stinkbug but look in these books:
ReplyDeleteSimon & Schuster's Guide To Insects
An Introduction To The Study of Insects
A Field Guide To The Insects Of America North Of Mexico
Butterflies And Moths
A Guide To Observing Insect Lives
And the Japanese Beetle I'll post about later.