#leafhopper

A beautifully bright Sharpshooter in the genus Baleja! Such pretry iridescent blue-red wings! With a phosphorecent yellow body! And such a cute puppy face!

Candy-striped aka Red-striped Leafhopper (Graphocephala coccinea), family Cicadellidae, IL, USA

This leafhopper grows to a max. length of 8.4 mm.

Graphocephala coccinea is quite the standout! I've always known these guys colloquially as candy-striped leafhoppers but iNaturalist is telling me they're called red-banded leafhoppers. :/ agree to disagree, I guess.

This first batch has already hopped off to new homes but there will definitely be more in the future!

Banana for scale.

Years ago I drew a few leafhoppers for an exercise at school. These are still the most popular thing I have ever posted on the internet. So I drew some more and made a poster. These little guys are very fun! finding all their scientific names was a pain though!

If you would like a print:

Dewy Hopper

by Tim Crabb

Mothing sheet highlight: this guy! Recently had the joy to contribute an iNaturalist first, meaning the very first observation of this species on iNaturalist worldwide was by me. There are now 10 observations of it, because I proceeded to post 9 more, these guys seem to love my sheet. Not my first worldwide first, but the first one I've had actually local to me. I've typed first so many times it doesn't look like a real word anymore