the.com/leafhopper
a thumbnail acrobat that armors itself in self-made glass and jumps like a launched bullet.
means A leafhopper is any of thousands of small, slender insects in the family Cicadellidae that feed on plant sap and leap startlingly far when disturbed.
from A plain English compound, exactly what it says: "leaf" (Old English lēaf, the foliage these insects cling to and feed on) plus "hopper" (from Old English hoppian, to spring or leap, the root behind "hop"). The name simply describes the creature's habit — a bug that lives on leaves and hops away in a flash. "Hopper" has long been pinned onto springy insects, sharing kinship with the grasshopper, and "leafhopper" follows the same homely, descriptive logic.
- living catapult
- accelerates at 400 times Earth's gravity when jumping
- gear teeth
- legs use interlocking gears, only known in nature
- glass coat
- secretes brochosomes, tiny waterproof spheres of organic glass
- honeydew rain
- squirts sugary waste droplets called brochosome cleaning
- crop saboteur
- spreads plant diseases by injecting saliva while feeding
aster leafhopper — macrosteles quadrilineatus, major agricultural pest causing aster yellows disease across north america
glassy-winged sharpshooter — homalodisca vitripennis, invasive species in california spreading pierce's disease in vineyards since 1990s
potato leafhopper — empoasca fabae, causes significant crop damage across us agricultural regions annually