Green Leafhopper

• Using its saw-like ovipositor the female cuts a slit in stems and in the bark of young shoots to insert the eggs, which can damage willow and fruit tree saplings.
• Its body is coated in brochosomes, microscopic protein particles that it secretes and spreads with its legs, forming a water-repellent layer that sheds both water and its own honeydew.
• It jumps by driving off with its hind legs at accelerations of several hundred times gravity.
• It manufactures brochosomes: hollow protein particles shaped like microscopic footballs, which it secretes through specialised Malpighian tubules and with which it coats its body.
• That coating is superhydrophobic, and it keeps the insect from getting trapped in its own sticky honeydew or in water droplets — a serious problem for an insect that excretes sugars all day long.
• The structure of brochosomes is studied in materials science for its anti-reflective and water-repellent properties.
• The female also uses them to cover her clutch, protecting it from desiccation and from parasitoids.
• It leaps with extraordinary force for its size, propelling itself with its hind legs.
• Its bright bluish green with a yellow head makes it unmistakable in damp rush beds.

Skeleton type

Invertebrate - chitin exoskeleton (insect)

Habitat and environment

Damp meadows, rush beds and the banks of rivers and irrigation channels

Sexual maturity

Five nymphal instars with no pupal stage: the nymph becomes an adult directly

Gestation / incubation

The eggs spend the winter inserted into stems and bark and hatch in spring; the nymphs go through five instars and reach adulthood in June or July

Litter / clutch size

The females insert the eggs singly or in small groups into the stems of rushes, sedges and grasses, between late August and early November

Sources consulted: Rakitov y Gorb (2013), Proceedings of the Royal Society B · Yang et al. (2017), Nature Communications · Buglife · Ficha de especie de Cicadella viridis · ScienceDirect (Hughes 1989) · Science Advances, How colonial animals evolve · Wikipedia, Zooid · Pavan & Gambon · Pavan & Gambon, ciclo biologico en el nordeste de Italia · datos de tamano de la familia Cicadellidae · Project Noah

Best time: Summer and autumn, in damp grassland