Wildlife Watching Wednesday: The Colorful Candy-Striped Leafhopper
By: Tom Berg
The warm days of summer are here, and that means our flower and vegetable gardens are already in full bloom. One of the most colorful residents of our backyard gardens is not a flower, though, it is the tiny candy-striped leafhopper. Have you ever seen one? Many people have, but these insects are so small (7-8mm long) that their brilliant colors usually go unnoticed.
Some people call them red-and-blue leafhoppers, and that is a pretty good description. They are also called the red-banded leafhopper. Their wings and their body just behind the head is marked with bright red and bright blue stripes. The colors are so bold they are almost fluorescent. It is a very unusual color pattern and some people say it reminds them of a candy cane. Their head, body and legs are yellow.
Candy-striped leafhoppers are native to North America and Central America, and they are one of our most beautiful insects. They are one of our most common leafhopper insect species, too, and that is saying a lot since there are about 2,500 leafhopper species living in North America alone.
These tiny insects feed on sap from a variety of different plants and flowers, especially blackberry, raspberry and rose plants. If enough of these insects are present they can become a pest and cause damage to the plants. They excrete excess sap and other bodily wastes as a sweet liquid called honeydew. The honeydew is expelled under pressure and often makes an audible popping sound. Other insects like ants, flies and wasps collect the honeydew and eat it.
Like all leafhoppers, the candy-striped leafhopper evades predators (and people) by jumping or hopping away with their extremely powerful legs. Their leaps are actually quite amazing when you compare the distance jumped with their relative body length. They have been known to jump more than 40 times their body length. By comparison, a 6-foot tall man would have to jump 240 feet to match their feat!
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