06 Friday Dec 2024
Posted in insects
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Today, scary as it may be that another year has seemingly passed by so quickly, we begin the run-up to 2025! As I’ve done a couple of times before, I’m going to review this year’s finds and posts, based on an alphabetical countdown. And so we begin with the letter A and one of my favourites of this year’s bugs, the Alder spittlebug (Aphrophora alni), which I blogged about on 31 August.
I don’t think this one was very impressed that I was taking photos while they were mating.
31 Saturday Aug 2024
Posted in insects
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“High five!”
The Alder spittlebug (Aphrophora alni) is very similar to the Common froghopper (Philaenus spumarius), and I have a feeling I may have mistaken them in the past, as this was the first time I was certain this was the spittlebug. The British Bugs website explains that ‘The genus can be recognised by the keel running down the midline of the head and pronotum, and the species by the colour pattern with distinct white patches near the margin of the wings’. To my eye, the spittlebug is a noticeably bigger – the froghopper is 5-7mm long, the spittlebug is 9-10mm – and wider in the beam.
