Leaf-hopper Photography by Kozmic Dreams

My Digital Photography of

Leaf-hoppers

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Unidentified Leaf-hopper

Found inside the house on June 10, 2020. About 1/4" long.

Unidentified Leaf-hopper

Brian took this photo of a leaf-hopper that landed on my shirt at Oakwoods Metropark on 7-6-14.

Unidentified Leaf-hopper

My dad found this neat white leaf-hopper while helping with the yard work at my house on August 9, 2011. It was only about 1/8" long and was very difficult to keep track of during the photo shoot. The first photos were taken on a coneflower. Then it settled on the white matboard and allowed me to take some good close-ups. The three photos with the green background are of the leaf-hopper on my woven plastic placemat.

Unidentified Leaf-hopper

I found this leaf-hopper on a rose I was photographing on July 13, 2010. I didn't even know it was there until I started processing the photos. That is why it's not in great focus.

Unidentified Leaf-hopper

I found this leaf-hopper on September 13, 2009 on my wild cucumber vine, where I was also lucky enough to find the red-banded leaf-hoppers below these photos. I thought it was interesting how in the last photos, you can see it puncturing the stalk of the vine, sucking the juice.

Red-Banded Leaf-hopper, Graphocephala coccinea

September 14, 2019

This area of milkweed at Proud Lake State Park was covered in red-banded leaf-hoppers. I've never seen so many in one place before.

August 11, 2017 on blackberry plant in my backyard garden. There were three total on the plant, but only two are shown here.

Since I was a child, I always loved this type of leaf-hopper. The colors are so beautiful. I call them "psychedelic leafhoppers" because of their swirly, vibrant appearance. I hadn't seen one in years and thought they were pretty much extinct now in my region. However, I found this one on September 5, 2009 on my wild cucumber vine, where lots of different leafhoppers seem to enjoy hanging out. I was really hoping to photograph it on a leaf or something natural, but it was just too fast. I lost it 3 times trying to catch it to bring it inside. Once I finally did have it inside, it kept flying to the window, so there was no way of getting a good background for the photos. I had to hand-hold the camera for these shots, so they aren't the greatest. I was balancing on top of my counter and sink to take these. It would only stay still for about two seconds at a time, then it would be off to another area and I had to hurry and find it and snap the photo. The second to last photo is not good, but it shows how the wings fold up in the rear. The last photo was the leafhopper just as it was taking off. Again, blurry, but still an unusual shot.

On September 13, 2009, I found two more of these hoppers on the cucumber vine and was able to photograph them on nicer surroundings outside this time.

Cotton Leaf-hopper Nymph, Acanalonia bivittata

My dad inadvertently brought one of these little guys over on a piece of mulberry branch (he was showing me the berries and leaves to verify they were edible because he wasn't sure what kind they were) on the evening of June 28, 2016. I kept it overnight with the branch, and photographed it the next day. There are petunias in the background of some of the photos. You can judge the size of the hopper from the first photo that shows one of the mulberries. Not counting the tuft, it was only about 1/8 inch long. It must have been too young to hop, because fortunately for me, all it did was crawl, making for a fairly easy photography subject.

On July 14, 2008, I saw something on the kitchen counter that appeared to be a bran bud. Upon closer inspection, I discovered it was another cotton leaf-hopper nymph, like the one I found in 2006. This one didn't have as much "cotton" coming out of its rear end though.

I found this strange insect in my front yard and photographed it on July 9, 2006. A few are out of focus, but they still show the general shape of the insect. It hops like a leaf-hopper and has a face similar to one, but I've never seen anything like this before in the 31 years I've lived in this area. After doing some research, I found that I was correct---it is a leaf-hopper (or sometimes called a plant hopper) nymph. This means it's just a baby. It has very strange red-orange eyes composed of concentric circles that don't even have a glassy appearance like most insect eyes. It also has a bristle poking out of a green protuberance underneath each eye. Stranger still, there is some white cotton-like material poking out of its rear end. This is one crazy-looking bug.

Acanalonia conica

I found this leaf-hopper in the grass on July 30, 2007. Unfortunately, one of its hind legs was broken and it wasn't able to hop (but it was easy to photograph).