Growing With Science Blog

Talk about the beauty and the beast…

This shiny green fly feeds on nectar from flowers.

The adult green bottle flies are actually visually interesting, perhaps even (dare I say it) attractive?

No one would ever call green bottle fly offspring, the fly larvae or maggots, even remotely attractive. They serve an important function, however, because they clean up dead animals and excrement. Think about what the earth might be like if decomposers and scavengers like green bottle flies weren’t around. Yuck!

If you have a really strong stomach, I mean really really strong, you can go see maggots at work. Warning:  not for the squeamish!

This group of flies are commonly called blow flies. They belong to the family Calliphoridae.

Have you seen any flies out yet where you live?

Aphids make most gardeners cringe, but if you look deeply, they are actually quite fascinating.

Take these aphids on a sunflower. You might not be able to see it in this lower resolution version, but I found an aphid giving birth, an aphid with a baby on its back and a winged aphid in this photograph.

Do you see the tiny wasp? She is laying her eggs in aphids, which will cause the aphids to turn into mummies.

In this view you can see some of them have their mouthparts stuck into the plant. What’s that silvery thing?

Although many people mistake theses insects for honey bees, this one is actually a fly. In fact it is a flower or hover fly, genus Eristalis.

Why is it here? The adult fly may have been feeding on nectar and pollen from the flower or it may have been drinking honeydew left behind by the aphids. It also may have been up to no good as far as the aphids are concerned, because it may have been laying eggs nearby. The larvae of many types of flower flies are predators of aphids.

So many little dramas right under our noses.

Our insect today is small (about 1/8 inch) and active, so you might not spot it easily.

It is a leafhopper in the family Cicadellidae, of the Order Hemiptera. Some of its insect relatives include cicadas and aphids.

As you might guess, it is called a leafhopper because it has enlarged hind legs for jumping, although some are more likely to scuttle to the other side of the leaf or stem than to jump. The adults also have wings and can fly.

Leafhoppers come in a rainbow of colors.

In this photograph by Benimoto at Wikimedia, you can see characteristic pyramid-like head, and the triangle in the middle of its back. Can you see the spines on the hind leg? Two rows of spines is a characteristic of leafhoppers.

What a big eye! This type of leafhopper is commonly called a sharpshooter. If it spots something approaching, it quickly scoots to the other side of the stem.

Where do leafhoppers come from? Leafhoppers go through incomplete metamorphosis.

The adult leafhoppers lay eggs on plants. This is a cluster of sharpshooter egg cases on a leaf.

Looks like these have hatched.

The young leafhoppers are called nymphs. They lack wings, but the older ones have wing buds.

Often you will see the nymphs and adults together on a plant.

Leafhoppers use their sucking mouthparts to suck juices from plants.

In this video you can see leafhoppers feeding and eliminating wastes, in the form of excess fluids, at the same time.

As I mentioned above, leafhoppers are related to cicadas. Not that long ago scientists discovered that male leafhoppers have similar structures, called tymbals, that cicadas use to sing. After further tests, it turns out male leafhoppers sing to attract the females, too, but the sound is too high a frequency for us to hear.

Tiny singing leafhoppers? Now that is cool!