''Aphrophora alni'', the European alder spittle bug, is a species belonging to the family

Aphrophoridae The Aphrophoridae are a family of spittlebugs belonging to the order Hemiptera. There are at least 160 genera and 990 described species in Aphrophoridae. Taxonomy Traditionally, most of the superfamily Cercopoidea was considered a single fa ...

Distribution

This species is quite common and widespread. It is present in most of

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

, in the eastern

Palearctic realm The Palearctic or Palaearctic is a biogeographic realm of the Earth, the largest of eight. Confined almost entirely to the Eastern Hemisphere, it stretches across Europe and Asia, north of the foothills of the Himalayas, and North Africa. The ...

, in the

Near East The Near East () is a transcontinental region around the Eastern Mediterranean encompassing the historical Fertile Crescent, the Levant, Anatolia, Egypt, Mesopotamia, and coastal areas of the Arabian Peninsula. The term was invented in the 20th ...

, and in

North Africa North Africa (sometimes Northern Africa) is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region. However, it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of t ...

. It is naturalized in North America.

Habitat

These 'froghoppers' inhabit dry and moist habitats of lowlands and mountainous areas, forest edges, hedgerows, meadows, gardens and parks, from the lowlands up to mountains at an elevation up to above sea level.H. Nickel: The leafhoppers and planthoppers of Germany (Hemiptera, Auchenorrhyncha): Patterns and strategies in a highly diverse group of phytophagous insects. Pensoft, Sofia and Moskau, 2003,

Description

The adults of these large 'froghoppers' reach of length,British Bugs
/ref> the females are usually slightly larger than the males. The basic coloration of the body is usually brown. Their front wings wear two distinct clear patches on the margins. Head and pronotum have a median keel. The head has a pair of compound eyes and two simple eyes (

ocelli A simple eye or ocellus (sometimes called a pigment pit) is a form of eye or an optical arrangement which has a single lens without the sort of elaborate retina that occurs in most vertebrates. These eyes are called "simple" to distinguish the ...

). The legs are strongly developed and fit to jump. Tibiae of the rear pair of legs carry several spines.

Biology

They can be encountered from May through October on bushes and on several species of trees, especially willows (''

Salix Willows, also called sallows and osiers, of the genus ''Salix'', comprise around 350 species (plus numerous hybrids) of typically deciduous trees and shrubs, found primarily on moist soils in cold and temperate regions. Most species are known ...

'' species), birch (''

Betula A birch is a thin-leaved deciduous hardwood tree of the genus ''Betula'' (), in the family Betulaceae, which also includes alders, hazels, and hornbeams. It is closely related to the beech- oak family Fagaceae. The genus ''Betula'' contains 3 ...

'' species), alder (''

Alnus Alders are trees of the genus ''Alnus'' in the birch family Betulaceae. The genus includes about 35 species of monoecious trees and shrubs, a few reaching a large size, distributed throughout the north temperate zone with a few species ext ...

'' species) and poplar (''

Populus ''Populus'' is a genus of 25–30 species of deciduous flowering plants in the family Salicaceae, native to most of the Northern Hemisphere. English names variously applied to different species include poplar (), aspen, and cottonwood. The we ...

'' species).). ''Aphrophora alni'' is a

polyphagous Feeding is the process by which organisms, typically animals, obtain food. Terminology often uses either the suffixes -vore, -vory, or -vorous from Latin ''vorare'', meaning "to devour", or -phage, -phagy, or -phagous from Greek φαγε ...

species, meaning it feeds on several kind of plants. The adults primarily feed on deciduous trees, while larvae prefer herbaceous plants (

dicotyledonous The dicotyledons, also known as dicots (or, more rarely, dicotyls), are one of the two groups into which all the flowering plants (angiosperms) were formerly divided. The name refers to one of the typical characteristics of the group: namely, ...

).Commanster
/ref> To lay eggs, the females migrate to the herb layers. The eggs overwinter and hatch the larvae in the following spring. The larvae live in stems and leaves of herbaceous plants inside the typical foam nest, that protects them against enemies and provide necessary moisture and temperature for their development. ''Aphrophora alni'' has only one generation a year.

Gallery

Image:Aphrophora alni mating.jpg, Mating Image:Aphrophora alni.jpg, Image:Aphrophoraalni Ausschnitt.jpg, File:Aphrophora alni - 2012-07-22.webm, Clip

References

External links

Biolib

Aphrophora

ITIS Report
* Soulier-Perkins, A. (2013
Cercopoidea Organised On Line.
{{Taxonbar, from=Q1355576 Aphrophoridae Insects described in 1805 Hemiptera of Europe Articles containing video clips