Inside the world of treehoppers, mini-marvels of the rainforest

If there were a competition for the world’s weirdest insect, treehoppers would have a clear shot at first place. See one for the first time and you’re sure to wonder: What are those strange protrusions sprouting from its body?

Many treehoppers flaunt outlandish outcroppings, such as the helicopter-like orbs of Bocydium sp. Others play it coy, mimicking thorns, leaves, or insect droppings. Still others impersonate ants or wasps. Forty-plus named species, as well as another 700 or so awaiting scientific description, resemble drops of rainwater.

Those singular shapes, insect anatomists explain, stem from the treehopper’s specially modified pronotum—a section of the thorax that in other insects resembles a small, shield-like plate. But treehoppers are the creative kids in their class, with their pronota arching into grotesque spires or globes, veritable billboards of their individuality.

ir common name suggests, these tiny insects—none are longer than a dime is wide—live on trees and plants worldwide, with nearly half the 3,200 or so described species inhabiting the New World tropics. One leaf in the Ecuadorian rainforest where this story was photographed could easily harbor more treehopper species than found in all of Europe.

Treehoppers are members of a huge and varied order of insects known as the Hemiptera, which include leafhoppers and cicadas. Like others of their kind, they’re equipped with mouthparts for piercing plant stems and slurping the juices inside. A bit like mosquitoes, they have two interlocking, needlelike feeding tubes, one for siphoning fluids, the other for secreting saliva that prevents the juices from coagulating.