Leafhoppers jump, sip sap, and spray armor called brochosomes
Leafhoppers—family Cicadellidae—are tiny sap-sucking bugs whose bristly hind legs launch them skyward and spread water-repellent, pheromone-carrying secretions over their bodies. With at least 20,000 described species they form the second-largest hemipteran family, spanning drab hoppers and vivid sharpshooters worldwide.
They sit in Cicadomorpha within Auchenorrhyncha (sometimes teased apart as Clypeorrhyncha). Diagnostic traits include short antennal bases ending in a bristle, two ocelli, keeled hind tibiae lined with movable spines, close-set middle coxae, and relatively thin forewings. Uniquely they produce brochosomes that coat bodies and eggs against predators and pathogens. Development is hemimetabolous: nymph to adult with no pupa. Stegelytrini can look almost fly-like with clear wings; Proconiini sharpshooters are the tribe farmers dread.
Piercing mouthparts tap grasses, shrubs, and trees; diets range from generalist to host-specific, with rare aphid snacks, mud-puddling (mostly males), and even opportunistic human blood draws of unclear purpose. As micropredator vectors they spread viruses, phytoplasmas, and bacteria. Agricultural villains include beet leafhopper (Circulifer tenellus) carrying curly top to nightshades and southwestern chiles, maize leafhopper Cicadulina mbila, potato leafhopper Empoasca fabae, glassy-winged sharpshooter Homalodisca vitripennis, and several rice green Nephotettix. Pathogens may replicate in salivary glands; eggs face parasitoids while Dicistroviridae and fungi hit adults. Two-spotted Sophonia rufofascia, blue-green Graphocephala atropunctata, common brown Orosius orientalis, and white apple Typhlocyba pomaria join that pest roster across crops and orchards.
Australia’s Kahaono montana even spins silk shelters under leaves. Phylogenetically leafhoppers are the basal living Membracoidea lineage beside treehoppers and kin. Older textbooks filed them in Homoptera, a grouping later split as hemipteran relationships were redrawn.
From vineyard sharpshooters to garden “hoppers,” the family’s success rests on jump legs, sap diets, and microscopic body armor.
Source: Leafhopper
