Their relatively short legs keep them close to the leaves, and their weak flight carries them low, directly from leaf to leaf or from leaf to prey. It’s not known whether this contact allows for support or for some kind of predator detection, and several authors speculated that the damselfly uses the bent tip as a springboard when it takes off, a la springtails.
So attached are they to water lilies that when they perch on one – and they seldom perch anywhere else – the tip of their abdomen is usually bent down to be in contact with it.
They are tied to a single group of plants – water lilies – a habit that is uncommon among Odonates. Aster treehoppers also have alarm pheromones that they activate when predators arrive, but scientists aren’t sure if that chemical message is received by the ants or is restricted to their fellow treehoppers. Studies have shown that Aster treehoppers will signal their protectors when ladybugs show up, and the ants will respond, and that the ants get excited when recorded treehopper alarm signals are played to them. Aster treehoppers also use vibrations to tell their confreres about good feeding spots and to alert their guardian ants to the presence of predators. Males woo their ladies in spring with (inaudible to us) courtship calls that they generate by sending vibrations through the substrate. Unlike many insects, Aster treehoppers overwinter as adults, not as nymphs or eggs, in leaf litter below their host plants.
Indeed, one of the evident benefits of ants for Publilia concava nymphs is that the ants remove the honeydew and reduce such fungal growth.” It is important for sap-feeding bugs to dispose of honeydew, as otherwise it can become infected with sooty moulds. The tube appears to be longer in solitary species rarely attended by ants. According to Wikipedia, nymphs “ have an extensible anal tube that appears designed to deposit honeydew away from their bodies. The BugLady usually sees them on goldenrods, but they can also be found on several other species in the Aster family, and the (winged) adults may move to woody plants. There are more than 3,000 species of treehoppers, and they live everywhere except Antarctica.Īster treehoppers ( Publilia concava) are found in the eastern half of North America. They are “true bugs” in the treehopper family Membracidae, some of which look dragon-like as nymphs and thorn-like as adults. Ants will “farm” herds of the docile aphids, protecting them from ladybugs and harvesting the sweet liquid in a win-win ecological relationship called mutualism.Īnother source of honeydew is treehoppers, which look kind of like lumbering bison compared to aphids. Aphids are a common source of honeydew because they must ingest a huge amount of dilute plant sap in order to fuel their activities, and the excess has to go somewhere, so it exits to the rear of the aphid. These are generally food-related – either a bunch of ants is carting a dead bug home, or they are satisfying their need for honeydew, a summertime, carbohydrate-rich specialty. One of the things that the BugLady looks for as she skulks around in the underbrush is interactions between ants and other insects.
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