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- Oct 22, 2006
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Update, if anyone is still reading this: My boss just got back from the national meeting of the Entomological Society of American and gave me the free calendar they gave him. For November, it has a tropical Homoptera with waxy projections coming out like in the photographs provided by SeekneSs, listed as being in the family Fulgoridae.
"This beautiful 2 inch long insect is a member of the family Fulgoridae, a hompoteran that produces a long tail of what we call wax, actually a combination of esters of 30-40 carbon alcohols and acids. The wax has many functions, including covering the eggs to keep them waterproof; deterring predators and parasites; slipping the insect out of a spider web; reflecting sunlight in some species as they fly above the jungle, making them appear as snowflakes in the tropics; perhaps making the individuals more visible to each other; and probably getting rid of excess sugars as the insects feed on phloem. Fulgorids usually sit on tree trunks, often the same trunk for days on end, and have been reported to lay eggs on the same tree for 30 years, so once dicovered, they can be viewd repeatedly for ecotourism. This species has been reported from Surinam, Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, to Uruguay and Paraguay."
"This beautiful 2 inch long insect is a member of the family Fulgoridae, a hompoteran that produces a long tail of what we call wax, actually a combination of esters of 30-40 carbon alcohols and acids. The wax has many functions, including covering the eggs to keep them waterproof; deterring predators and parasites; slipping the insect out of a spider web; reflecting sunlight in some species as they fly above the jungle, making them appear as snowflakes in the tropics; perhaps making the individuals more visible to each other; and probably getting rid of excess sugars as the insects feed on phloem. Fulgorids usually sit on tree trunks, often the same trunk for days on end, and have been reported to lay eggs on the same tree for 30 years, so once dicovered, they can be viewd repeatedly for ecotourism. This species has been reported from Surinam, Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, to Uruguay and Paraguay."
