Family picture
Aren’t these babies cute?
These are Fulgoroidea, or plant hoppers. When you’re walking on the grass, you can often see several of these jumping away at every step. They are very fun to play with.
They’re in the Hemiptera family, along with cicadas, aphids and true bugs. The characteristic that distinguishes them is that Y shaped vein in their wings:
Despite feeding on plants, and existing in large quantities, they are hardly ever pests. They can carry plant diseases like fungus from one area of the garden to another, though. So beware!
Family picture by The Bug Lady, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Tags: Arthropod, entomology, Hemiptera, Insect, planthopper
Oh I’d never thought that they could carry any diseases, they look like if they had a nose, and walks funny from side to side while you look at them, I use to call them friends, when I was little because they remain in my fingers for a while enough to watch them & play with them some times…
I think of them as my little friends too. When I was little, I used to like waking up early before school and going to the garden with my cat. I’d lay down on the lawn and brush it with my hands, and look at all the little hoppers that would jump and try to run away.
The plant diseases that they carry are not in them, They are spores that stick to them as they brush past them. Because they move very fast from one region to another with their big leaps, they often help molds and fungus spread from one area to another, and that way they can contaminate crops and whatnot.
They’re ok to play with :)