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Project Noah Nature School
Eurymelidae family
Gum tree
Some type of plant hopper nymphs? With an adult in the 2nd/3rd shots?
Spotted on Mar 11, 2012
Submitted on Mar 12, 2012
6 Comments
Cool!
This would be a great addition to the global mission, The Hoppers: http://www.projectnoah.org/missions/8096...
Wish I could help you with the species, it's similar to the lined gum treehopper, but the pattern on the nymphs is not the same.
Alice: true parental care is very rare in insects, aside from social insects like wasps, ants and bees, only a small handful come to mind (For example, earwig females guard their eggs and their hatchlings, until they are mature enough to leave the nest on their own). This clustering of adults and juveniles is pretty common among insects that undergo incomplete metamorphosis. Since adults and juveniles eat the same type of food, and often prefer specific host plants, the adults don't need to disperse far from where they were born. But also the point made about safety in numbers holds true as well. Especially with insects that have the aposematic (warning) coloration that alerts predators to their bad taste or chemical defenses. In that case having a cluster of these brightly colored insects reinforces the "message".
That's very interesting Asergio, thanks for the info. Does anyone know what this species is?
RachaelB and Alice: I've spoted some groups like that, but of treehoppers:
http://www.projectnoah.org/spottings/900...
At first, I thought it was some kind of parental behavior but now I think that these are actually brothers, coming from the same laying, but that developed in different time lapses. I've seen that differential development occurring among other insects, like grasshoppers and caterpillars. I followed a group of newborn grasshoppers for more then two months, and I could see fully grown up specimens side by side with some others still in the second or third instars (which brings on another peculiarity of their behavior, they stay grouped for a long time, maybe looking for security in numbers). The link bellow shows individuals of at least three different instars together.
http://www.projectnoah.org/spottings/830...
http://www.projectnoah.org/spottings/830...
Cool! I wonder if that is Mama overseeing them.