Froghoppers

Throughout June many of the plants in the garden have been decorated with 'cuckoo spit', the frothy bubbles blown by froghopper nymphs feeding on the sap.

Outside of their bubble bath, the nymphs are cute little insects .....

.......with lethargic movements, strange, two-toed feet........

.... and a bulbous nose, which acts as a pump when they suck sap through a stylet that punctures the plant.

Now the nymphs are beginning to turn into adults and they are incredibly energetic, leaping through the undergrowth with tremendous speed at the slightest touch.

An adult froghopper can catapult itself to a height of 140 times its body length. That’s equivalent to a human jumping over a bar set at 260 metres, when the current Olympic record stands at 2.39 metres.

In 2003 Cambridge neurobiologist Malcolm Burrows, analysing a theoretical  high jump contest between fleas and froghoppers, found that the latter coming out on top. Eleven percent of a froghopper’s body mass is concentrated in two jumping muscles but these can’t contract fast enough to generate the insect’s take- off acceleration of four metres per second in the first millisecond of its jump. That’s achieved with a leg-locking mechanism which, when it breaks free, releases a force of over 400 times the body weight of the jumper, over 130 times greater than human’s legs can manage.  The key to this performance is resilin, the most efficient elastic protein known,  which stores energy accumulated by the insect’s contracting muscles and releases it with explosive force, generating acceleration of about 400g; we humans black out under a force of 5g. 

The adults of Philaenus spumarius display a range of colour patterns. Many are just plain brown but this individual sported a smart two-tone colour scheme.

Garden visitors

Some recent garden insect visitors during the last week. Thanks to Africa Gomez, author of the always fascinating BugBlog for IDing some of these for me.

I think this hoverfly, that had a conspicuously loud buzz and frequently returned to the same sunny spot when disturbed, is a narcissus fly Merodon equestris. Probably its larvae are even now feeding on our daffodil bulbs.

I think this is a small cuckoo bee (Nomada sp.?) visiting a Welsh poppy

An azure damselfly that hatched from our garden pond - didn't know until then that they were breeding there

A large hoverfly, identified for me by Africa Gomez as Myathropa florea

A sawfly Arge ustulata, whose larvae feed on the leaves of various hedgerow trees and shrubs

Two froghopper larvae that were inadvertently separated from their frothy 'cuckoo spit' when I was weeding the garden. They quickly blew some more bubbles.

An exquisitely metallic hoverfly soldier fly with interference colours in its eyes (thanks to Africa Gomez for the ID)

The solitary bee Osmia rufa collecting pollen and nectar from the poached egg plant Limnanthes douglasii. You can see here how they collect pollen on the underside of their abdomen. Thanks to Africa Gomez for the correct ID.

Life in the undergrowth .....

Some insects in our garden undergrowth (it's a jungle out there!)

An anxious cabbage white butterfly, checking that the coast is clear. Beautiful eyes.

A marmalade hoverfly Episyrphus balteatus, hanging in the air in a sun fleck.

Amazing eyes of a much larger hoverfly Volucella pellucens , feeding on some leeks that we never ate and have now flowered - the big, spherical flower heads are very popular with bees and hoverflies. 

Volucella pellucens is a hoverfly that breeds inside wasp nests........ 

........... and might even have laid eggs in the nest of this wasp, that was hunting for small insects on dill umbels.

This froghopper was on the same umbel as the wasp but well beyond its reach, tucked in amongst the 'spokes' of the dill's umbrella-shaped inflorescence.

The best time of the day in the garden ...

During this heatwave, the best time of the day to be in our garden is between 6am., when the sun creeps over the hedge, and 8am. when the day really begins to heat up.

The first shafts of sunlight spotlight the tallest plants, like this dill ......

..... or illuminate individual flowers like this meadow cranesbill.

Some insects, like these Solomon's seal sawfly larvae that defoliate our Solomon's seal plants at this time every year, probably feed during the night and retreat under what's left of the leaves during the hottest part of the day.

This solitary bee, which I haven't identified yet but might be a Nomada species, has taken up residence in one of the hogweed stem tubes in the 'bee hotel' that we made over the winter, and emerged as soon as the sun shone into its residence.

Even at 6am. it's warm enough for bumblebees to be very active ....

....... and as soon as the sun spotlights the tall monkshood flower spikes they attract a lot of attention from bumblebees.

Other bumblebees seem to specialise in collecting pollen from newly-opened opium poppies. Their technique is to crawl under the ring of stamens, buzz and work their way around between the stamens and the petals, showering themselves in pollen that they later comb off into their pollen baskets. By 7am. this bee's pollen baskets were already full.

This tree bumblebee adopted a different technique, visiting Lavatera flowers that wilted and closed yesterday and extracting the remaining nectar by forcing its long tongue down between the base of the petals and the sepals. 

Some insects, like this drone fly that mimics a bumblebee, perch on the lavender flower spikes just to bask in the sun ...

... while this common carder bumblebee was busy collecting nectar from the same plant.

Other early morning insects today included a green capsid bug which I think might be Lygocoris pabulinus, feeding inside a marigold ...

...... an anxious-looking froghopper, newly emerged from its 'cuckoo spit' cocoon of bubbles ........

.............. and a crane-fly that will probably soon end up in one of the many spiders' webs that are beginning to appear around the garden...

Scarlet and Black

There has been a sudden emergence of these colourful froghoppers Cercopis vulnerata recently. These were photographed in Teesdale yesterday. My impression is that they are becoming more common locally. Their nymphs feed on the roots of plants so, unlike the common froghoppers whose nymphs produce the familiar 'cuckoo spit' on stems, these don't attract attention until they emerge as adults.

Froghoppers

Too hot today to do anything except sit in the shade with a cool beer within easy reach and a camera with a macro lens, watching the froghoppers which are beginning to turn into active adults. This nymph in the late stages of development had left its bath of bubbles behind, then settled on the underside of a lily bud and begun to produce some more 'cuckoo spit'.

This one was keeping cool in its pool of bubbles, while....

... this nymph went walkabout. You can see its wings are developing but have some way to go yet, unlike....

... this adult.

Today's biggest challenge was making sure that none of these little jumpers landed in my beer when they were pinging around in the undergrowth.

Gaudy Froghopper

Several bloggers have recently posted images of this gaudy little froghopper Cercopis vulnerata, which reminded me that it's a long time since I've seen one - until today. This was one of several amongst the leaves of rose-bay willow herb.

Unlike the familiar brown froghoppers whose larvae develop in a frothy mass of 'cuckoo spit' on plant stems, this species' larvae develop underground on plant roots, where several huddle together in a patch of solidified froth - perhaps on the roots of the rose-bay willow herb plants.

Shades of Green

There were somedays over the Bank Holidays when it was so hot that, rather than plod all over the landscape in search of wildlife, I decided to just sit in the grass under the shade of a tree and explore the wildlife within immediate reach of a macro lens. ....... like this infant froghopper larva producing a bubblebath of plant sap....

.... and this spider suspender in an almost invisible web....

.... and these two minute flies (Sepsis spp.?) with eyes like garnets.