urbpan | 100 more species #92: Speckled sharpshooter

Speckled sharpshooter Paraulacizes irrorata

Sharpshooters are a subset of the insects called leafhoppers (distinct from planthoppers and treehoppers). This group is distinguished by a relatively streamlined body shape, a tympanum, and the habit of laying eggs in the tissues of plants. The tympanum is a sound-making organ, famously deafening in cicadas--a cousin of the -hoppers--the songs of leafhoppers are inaudible to humans without amplification. Some sharpshooters are agricultural pests, notably the glassy-winged sharpshooter. Long time readers will remember my friend

rockbalancer; for a time she worked with parasitic wasps which were cultivated to prey on the glassy-wing.

I can't improve on this explanation: "The name 'sharpshooters' refers to their habit of forcing excess water droplets out of the tip of the abdomen with an audible popping noise." - http://bugguide.net/node/view/52731