HOME | DD

Description
Found one tiny spittlebug running around... assume is to find a feeding ground... Decided to do a backlight on this little guy. Love the result! Taken at night in Singapore.

Check out the animation! farm9.staticflickr.com/8602/15…

Quote from en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Froghopp…
The froghoppers, or the superfamily Cercopoidea, are a group of Hemipteran insects, in the suborder Auchenorrhyncha. Adults are capable of jumping many times their height and length, giving the group their common name, but they are best known for their plant-sucking nymphs which encase themselves in froth in springtime.

These families are best known for the nymph stage, which produces a cover of frothed-up plant sap resembling spit; the nymphs are therefore commonly known as spittlebugs and their froth as cuckoo spit, frog spit or snake spit. The final family in the group, Machaerotidae, is known as the tube spittlebugs because the nymphs live in calcareous tubes, rather than producing froth as in the other families.

The froth serves a number of purposes. It hides the nymph from the view of predators and parasites, it insulates against heat and cold, thus providing thermal control and also moisture control; without the froth the insect would quickly dry up. The nymphs pierce plants and suck sap causing very little damage, much of the filtered fluids go into the production of the froth, which has an acrid taste, deterring predators. A few species are serious agricultural pests.

Description
Found one tiny spittlebug running around... assume is to find a feeding ground... Decided to do a backlight on this little guy. Love the result! Taken at night in Singapore.

Check out the animation! farm9.staticflickr.com/8602/15…

Quote from en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Froghopp…
The froghoppers, or the superfamily Cercopoidea, are a group of Hemipteran insects, in the suborder Auchenorrhyncha. Adults are capable of jumping many times their height and length, giving the group their common name, but they are best known for their plant-sucking nymphs which encase themselves in froth in springtime.

These families are best known for the nymph stage, which produces a cover of frothed-up plant sap resembling spit; the nymphs are therefore commonly known as spittlebugs and their froth as cuckoo spit, frog spit or snake spit. The final family in the group, Machaerotidae, is known as the tube spittlebugs because the nymphs live in calcareous tubes, rather than producing froth as in the other families.

The froth serves a number of purposes. It hides the nymph from the view of predators and parasites, it insulates against heat and cold, thus providing thermal control and also moisture control; without the froth the insect would quickly dry up. The nymphs pierce plants and suck sap causing very little damage, much of the filtered fluids go into the production of the froth, which has an acrid taste, deterring predators. A few species are serious agricultural pests.