I love cicada season! Giant bugs. Everyone loves giant bugs! These shells are from the every so tiny Silver Princess (Yoyetta celis). I always find these ones trapped in spiderwebs, they’ve got a knack for it.
These shells would be around 1-1.5cm long. Hang on, what’s this guy got on his head? Enhance!
It’s a smaller version of itself? I had to do a bit of digging on this one as I’ve never seen a smaller shell of the smallest cicada shell I know of on top of itself.
Turns out it was likely one of these! The babies are wingless (like the shell above), the white bug is the one just emerged from a shell and the ones with darkened wings are adults. The ants pictured are in a mutualistic, symbiotic relationship with the leafhoppers. Neat! 📸
Both cicadas and leafhoppers belong to the suborder Auchenorrhyncha. I won’t even try to pronounce that. Thanks to the Museum of Tropical Queensland for having a Q&A on these little guys.
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