I found a group of Cyphona leafhoppers ( Cyphona cf. trifida ) feeding on a rare plant I grow in my yard (in the eastern Andes of Ecuador). They are only 7mm long and are so cute!

One wonders what function those strange antenna-like rear appendages might have. As already mentioned, some certainly imitate ants. Other species can mimic insect-eating fungi. Some may simply protect themselves from predators by acting as a spiked shield.

But recently it was discovered that these beetles sing through the trunks of their host trees, vibrating the trunks at frequencies that humans can hear, if that vibration can be transmitted mechanically into space. time. gas. People have created such devices and now there is a library of songs about treehoppers!!

The songs are complex and each individual can emit different calls depending on the context: warning calls, male courtship songs, female acceptance songs, etc., like this . simple bird sounds.

Males may even interfere with the songs of other males. The babies even called out to their mothers when disturbed by predators and the mothers came to the rescue!! They almost certainly also sent signals to their associates using this means.

This makes us wonder whether strange helmets with “antennas” could play a role in regulating the frequency of sound emitted, or whether they could be resonators for fine detection than some of these signals or not. The helmet is completely hollow and attached only to the neck and front legs.

It turns out there may be another side to the story of insects using plants to transmit their songs. . . Heidi Appel and Rex Cocroft (later an expert on membrane songs) discovered that plants can “hear” vibrations made by insects (in this case, chewing caterpillars). and increased production of defensive chemicals in response!! However, to date, Arabidopsis (the plant used in the experiment) does not respond to the hopper’s song, but only to the chewing caterpillar. But this water hyacinth mainly feeds on trees, and perhaps some tropical plants can hear their songs and respond. Interesting future learning path.