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Horse-shoe Treethopper

Cladonota ballista

Photo by BeNature
Published on Project Noah
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Field Notes

Description:

Cool little leafhopper. Found him at about 1000ft above sea level. Probably about 12mm in length. It's hard to imagine how it flies with that weight on top of it's head, but the wings are there. Not really sure what the purpose of that "headpiece" is...maybe for protection. Any other ideas?

Species ID Suggestions

Treehopper

Cladonota ballista

Reference Link
ChunXingWong
3

Membracid Leafhopper

Sphongophorus sp.

Reference Link
Juan DiTrani
3

Comments (11)
ChunXingWong
In EOL.org, it says that Sphongophorus is the synonym of Cladonota. So basically they are the same, it is just a matter of which one is more updated.
Ashish
Genus is Sphongophorus Specie is ballista ID- Horse-shoe Treethopper Need to be updated as per reference of following links. http://www.ibdml.univ-mrs.fr/equipes/BP_NG/Illustrations/Membracidae.html http://guyane-insecte.forumactif.com/t456-falculifera-sp-membracidae-de-guyane-4 http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/news/4290/full-circle-evolution-when-a-wing-not-a-wing?page=0%2C1
ChunXingWong
Cladonota (Sphongophorus) ballista, I found this tree hopper in one of a zoologist's spottings.
BeNature
Thanks for the species IDs. Those definitely look like the right insect. Not sure why they have slightly different scientific names though.
BeNature
Found him at about 1000ft above sea level. Probably about 12mm in length. It's hard to imagine how it flies with that weight on top of it's head, but the wings are there. Not really sure what the purpose of that "headpiece" is...maybe for protection. Any other ideas?
Mark Ridgway
Very interesting creature. Can you tell us a bit more about it?
Liam
That is really neat!

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PublishedNovember 29, 2011

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