|
|
|
|
|||
|
| |||
science, health & technologyAlso in this
section:
Treehoppers 101 The differences among treehoppers, leafhoppers and grasshoppers? Even if you got your PhD from the Shaolin Temple, you will have a hard time making the distinction by observing kung fu stances. However, if you attended the science lecture at the Smithsonian's Tupper Auditorium on January 31, Duane Flynn, a curator for the Gaston Museum in North Carolina and someone who has devoted 37 years of his life to the study of treehoppers, would have clued you in. Flynn is here in Panama because tropical treehoppers are not well studied and he intends to close some of that knowledge gap and eventually publish a field guide about them. It's his second time down here, and he's excited about the opportunities afforded by the Panamanian outdoors as a specialist would be. Treehoppers are members of a genus of insects of the Auchenorrhynca suborder and Membracidae family. They are more closely related to cicadas than to grasshoppers or leafhoppers. During Flynn's lifetime taxonomy has been rocked by the DNA revolution that in many cases has disproven old assumptions about how closely related morphologically similar insects actually are. However, in his particular specialty "the molecular work has basically solidified... what we knew for many years," even to the extent of overturning more recent pre-DNA revisions of 19th century classifications. Treehoppers, in common with all insects of their suborder, have their mouth parts behind their heads. Their legs have rows of cucullate setae --- small, hairlike spines --- as compared to the strong leg spikes that you find on a grasshopper. They have soft, transparent outer wings. They have sexual dimorphism, females being the larger but less ostentatious gender. Maybe the most obvious thing is that a treehopper has a pronotum, a hollow thing that sticks up behind and sometimes above the head. The sizes, shapes and colorations of these organs vary widely among the species of treehoppers, as apparently do their purposes as well. The pronotum offers protection from such predators as birds, toads, spiders and wasps --- sometimes as camouflage, sometime by mimicking things that something that might otherwise consider them a fine meal would not care to eat. A lot of treehoppers sport pronotums that let them look like thorns on the trees that they inhabit, and others disguise themselves as ants. Thinking like an insect, a really cool pronotum can also be quite useful in attracting a desirable mate. Like tree sloths, treehoppers tend to be covered with fungal spores. Some fungi are not benign. Treehoppers also have reason to fear certain parasites. A lot of treehopper species, particularly in the tropics, have close relationships with ants, which milk them for secretions to eat. Treehoppers can't be heard by the naked human ear, but acoustical studies indicate that they do make sounds at frequencies out of our hearing range, sometimes to warn nymphs of approaching dangers, sometimes to spread the news of some newly discovered food supply, and sometimes to attract a mate. The former two functions, however, have been found only in a minority of treehopper species are social animals. Flynn is particularly interested in the trees and shrubs that Panama's treehoppers inhabit, and especially if they establish themselves on coffee or cacao plants and if so whether they harm them. Noting that life history studies have only been done on a relatively few treehopper species, he'd like to fill in some of those gaps in biological knowledge.
Also in this
section:
News |
Business
|
Editorial
|
Opinion
|
Letters
|
Arts
|
Review
|
Community
|
Fun
|
Travel
Make the
Executive Hotel your headquarters in Panama City --- http://ww.executivehotel-panama.com Find the boat of your dreams through Evermarine --- http://www.evermarine.com |
|||||||||||
|
