What do spittle bugs look like

A froghopper can leap into the air as high as a flea, but it weighs 60 times more than a flea. Such a jump requires the froghopper to exert more than times its own body weight. The reason for these tremendous, sudden leaps is to help the hopper evade its enemies. Considering how fast these insects can jump away, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and mammals would seem to have their dinner disappear into thin air.

Aphids, like spittlebugs, spend most of their time literally attached to their food plants. Both excrete rather large amounts of watery material due to their diet of sap. And both turn their waste into something useful: Spittlebugs turn their excretions into protective bubble houses. Meanwhile, many aphid species have mutually beneficial relationships with ants, which eat the sugary secretions and pay back the aphids by protecting them from enemies.

Spittlebugs and Froghoppers. Field Guide Aquatic Invertebrates. Butterflies and Moths. Land Invertebrates. Reptiles and Amphibians. Trees, Shrubs and Woody Vines.

Wildflowers, Grasses and Other Nonwoody Plants. Scientific Name. Key identifiers include 2 tiny black spots at the head tip which can resemble nostrils , 2 ridges on the head above the antennae, and raised wing veins. The green nymphs have dark antennae. It feeds on hundreds of different plant species, and it can be an agricultural pest. Diamondback spittlebug Lepyronia quadrangularis , in family Aphrophoridae: Closely resembles 3 others in its genus in North America. All are tan with a darker diamond pattern on the back.

Dogwood spittlebug Clastoptera proteus , in family Clastopteridae: adults have a distinctive black and yellow pattern, with yellow stripes on the head, and each forewing bearing a single yellow patch. And if they dislike your plant enough to spit it out, why are they still feeding on it? The froth is actually a secretion. Spittlebug nymphs turn the liquid secretion into bubbles by moving or pumping their bodies.

Spittlebug eggs are laid in late summer and are left to overwinter on plant debris. The eggs will hatch in early spring and go through five instars, or stages, before becoming adults. When the nymphs originally hatch in early spring, they will attach themselves to a plant and begin feeding. They are a wingless, green creature at this point and are almost invisible inside the spittle. Although the names are used interchangeably, spittlebugs and leafhoppers are not the same insect. Spittlebugs are related to leafhoppers but have a broader body.

They also have faces that resemble frogs and are sometimes call froghoppers. Although spittlebug nymphs do feed on plant sap, the damage is minimal, and populations are usually small, so no pesticide is necessary. A strong blast with a hose should be enough to dislodge a spittlebug nymph. As the plants grow, look for them on the underside of young leaves.

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Quick facts Spittlebugs are known for the frothy spittle mass they produce while feeding on plants. They feed on a variety of plants like, ornamental grasses, roses, chrysanthemums, clover, strawberries, herbs and many other garden plants. Meadow spittlebug nymphs are typically a pale green or yellow, while pine spittlebug nymphs are brown. Spittlebugs overwinter as tiny white eggs in plant stems.

The eggs hatch in early to mid-spring. Over the next month or two, the nymph feeds within it spittle, molting two to four times. The nymph finally molts to an adult in late spring or early summer, emerging from its froth. Adults continue to feed through the summer, migrating to new hosts as foliage dries out, but are rarely noticed without the conspicuous spit.

In late summer to fall, females lay overwintering eggs. There is only one generation each year. A froghopper — an adult spittlebug. Both the adults and immatures feed on plant sap. Unlike most sucking insects that feed on the phloem, spittlebugs feed on the xylem. The water-carrying xylem is much less nutrient rich than the phloem, so the bugs must process large quantities of sap in order to get the amino acids they require for growth and development.