Thanks to Lois OŽBrien and Jason Cryan for help with the identification of Fulgoridae images.
Designed by Paul Smith 2006. This website is copyrighted by law.
Material contained herewith may not be used without the prior written permission of FAUNA Paraguay.
Photographs on this page were taken by Paul Smith and are used with their permission.
FULGORIDAE: LANTERN BUGS
Medium to large bugs (the largest reaching 10cm!), some of which are superficially similar to cicadas. This is an exclusively tropical family of 750 or so species worldwide each feeding by sucking plant uses using the piercing mouthparts. The front wings are large and in some species brightly-coloured, and both sets of wings have an intricate network of veins and cross-veins. Some of the more distinctive species are notable for thie strange head shapes, leading the name "peanut bugs" or "crocodile bugs" on account of the supposed resemblance of their head structures to the proposed adjectives. These strange shaped heads were originally assumed to possess a luminescent function, leading to the name "lantern bugs", though there are no substantiated records of this happening in any known species. Many species rapidly flick open the wings to startle predators, and the hindwings are often marked with ocelli.
Click on the images to enlarge them.
 Fulgoridae 24 feb 08.jpg) | FIGURE 1 |
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