
Treehopper (Photo by me.)
Lots to celebrate this 4th of July! Besides the usual Independence Day stuff, I'm celebrating a new computer system and liberation from dial-up Internet! Woohoo! This will allow me to do a lot more (with less frustration) to share photographs and experiences with some of the other residents of Frog Pond Holler.
I decided to start with the little treehopper above because my close encounter with her (or him!) is representative of the ordinary magic of life in the holler. The diversity of creatures on Earth never ceases to amaze and delight me. On the day I came across this treehopper, I was just enjoying a break, taking the opportunity to photograph some of the flowers around the yard.
I had taken this photo of some white flowers on a tree -- which I later identified as most likely a common elder.
As I made note of the leaves and flower structure so that I could identify it later, I noticed a dark thorny-looking spot on one of the branches. It was hard to tell what it was. It looked so much like part of the stem that I almost moved on, but something -- maybe intuition that this object was not what it seemed -- kept me in the exploratory mode. I put my camera on macro and poked the lens down near the spot. Once I had it focused, it was clear this was not a thorn or dead tissue.
It had feet! And maybe an eye and some wings! It was a little hard to tell by the smaller image on the camera screen. By the time I'd taken several frames, the tree hopper started moving along the stem, confirming that it was indeed an insect of some kind.
Once I uploaded the images and saw them on a full screen, I had to let out a couple of woohoos. What an amazing creature in the detail!
With the images on the screen it's also easy to get out the old bug book and translate the visual info to key in on the family trees, so to speak -- in this case I had a tree and a bug to identify.
(The first image I saw on the screen -- definitely had feet. Photo by me.)
For any bug fans out there, I'd say this is indeed a treehopper, otherwise labeled order Himiptera and family Membracidae. The book I use (Insects, Spiders and Other Terrestrial Arthropods p.98) says this family has about 2,500 species. I'm just happy beyond measure to have found this one.
Over the next few weeks I'll be sharing more close encounters with life in Frog Pond Holler.
UPDATE: 7/5/09
I didn't realize what a great resource I'd hit upon when I snagged a link for the guide book I use. The site, BugGuide.Net, has "Identification, Images, & Information For Insects, Spiders & Their Kin For the United States & Canada." You can register to create an account and make comments on entries or even contribute your own images.
Check out a really great photo of a similar-looking treehopper at BugGuide. I learned a lot by reading the notes with the photos. From now on I'll be sure to note what kind of plant I found the bug on. In the case of this genus (Enchenopa), the species can sometimes be narrowed down by what plant the treehopper was on. I'll have to verify where mine was. I thought it was on the elder, but there is kind of a tangle of limbs in the vicinity of the photo due to a recently fallen peach tree (boohoo!) and it might actually have been on the redbud that is close by.
If you do a "treehopper" search at the BugGuide site you'll find lots more species and notes made by the person who took the photo. This is a fantastic resource for bug people, or anyone who just wants to know what crawling (or flying or hopping) around out there.