280 days of Urbpandemonium #96

[urbpan]

For really great photos of candy-stripe leafhoppers, Graphocephala coccinea*, see here (BUG SEX WARNING). These adorable little pests use their adorable little beaks to suck juices out of plants--I think they're doing lots of adorable damage to our raspberries. These hoppers are part of the group called "sharpshooters," subfamily Cicadellinae.** Like their smaller, less hoppy relatives the aphids, they excrete excess fluid from their plant-sucking lifestyle. Unlike aphids, which slowly emit the stuff as payment in an ant-mafia protection racket, sharpshooters explosively fire droplets of liquid from their abdomen. Pew pew!

* "written-on-head, red like a berry"

** "Little cicada subfamily"