Horse-shoe Treethopper

Cladonota ballista

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?

2 Species ID Suggestions

ChunXingWong 12 years ago

Treehopper

Cladonota ballista One of the oddest treehoppers, Sphongophorus (Cladonota) ballista, from Panama photo by artour_a from Flickr at Lurvely

Juan DiTrani 12 years ago

Membracid Leafhopper

Sphongophorus sp. http://ecoport.org/ep?SearchType=slideshowViewSlide&slideshowId=91&slideId=1968

11 Comments

ChunXingWong 11 years ago

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.

Josh Asel 11 years ago

thats crazy man.

Aaron_G 11 years ago

What a hopper!

Ashish Nimkar 11 years ago

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_...
http://guyane-insecte.forumactif.com/t45...
http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/news/4290/...

ChunXingWong 12 years ago

Cladonota (Sphongophorus) ballista, I found this tree hopper in one of a zoologist's spottings.

BeNature 12 years ago

Thanks for the species IDs. Those definitely look like the right insect. Not sure why they have slightly different scientific names though.

KarenL 12 years ago

Awesome spot!

courtneyhitson 12 years ago

Very nice!! Cool find!!

BeNature 12 years ago

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?