The Urban Pantheist

An ant (probably Formica subsericea, the host species to our slave making ants) and her herd of aphids on a stem of Cosmos.


Every once in a while I'll tell Alexis that she's pretty, and she looks at me like I told her that I like toothaches. I took this picture to prove both things.

Gyponana Rugosana querci leafhopper nymph.

EDITED 7/11/13 on account of some smartypants on Bugguide.net identified it more precisely.

This enterprising young insect hitched a ride in Alexis' car at some point and disembarked in our yard. I wouldn't count a scarlet macaw or an Indian elephant on the list if it made it into the yard that way, but the chances are close to 100% that there are already other leafhoppers on the property. There are about 50 species in the genus Gyponana, all well-camouflaged plant-sucking bugs. Recently the subgenus Rugosana was elevated to its own genus out of Gyponana. This one is wingless because it is sexually immature, but adults jump/fly their way from plant to plant. This one better start crawling to the back corner of the yard to get to the neighbor's oak trees, since that's all they eat and we don't have any.

The last time I posted a leafhopper on this blog a scientist friend was inspired to respond with a much more interesting blog post. The short of it, as I understand it, is that leafhoppers have symbiotic bacteria that help them derive nutrients from their diet of plant juice. Nothing too weird there, all of us animal-type organisms pretty much have the same deal. However in leafhoppers (and one assumes other insects that suck phloem for a living) the symbionts are somehow transmitted from mother to egg, insect and bacterium coevolving for eons into inseparable partners, the bacteria become in essence organs of the insect.