#psyllidae

Hungry for a snack? Try a lerp! Lerps are structures made out of crystallized honeydew which are formed by the larvae of jumping plant lice, of which over 300 species are found in Australia. The word comes from the Aboriginal Wemba Wemba word lerep, and lerps are a popular food for Abogirinal people across the continent.

The eucalypts out at the Dryandra Woodlands were absolutely INFESTED with Jumping Plant Lice, and most of them were in the genus Creiis as far as I can tell. Of all the insects I was collecting over the weekend, Psyllids outnumbered anything else about 100-to-1.

Psyllids nymphs build shelters from excreted sugar, called Lerps, and the shape of the lerp is specific to genus. The horn-shaped ones here are among the least elaborate, but are large for a psyllid. 

The plague of lerps isn’t a new thing - I’ve found reports of other population explosions at Foxes Lair and other parts of Western Australia, and it’s most likely related to the stress the trees are under. Combined with drought, a psyllid infestation can be enough to kill a tree.

Bug of the Day

One of the Jumping Plant Lice, very common in Australian Eucalyptus bushland, where their nymphs build intricate shelters out of sugar, called ‘lerps’. 

A genus of Psyllid, first described in 1987. I don’t have much information on the genus, unfortunately - There’s about 18 described species in the genus, mostly described in a 1987 paper by one K.L.Taylor , and a few described back at the start of last century by the renowned W.W. Froggatt that were in the genus Rhinocola and Alphalara, and got reevaluated by Taylor and put in the new genus.