Exhibitionist

Common Froghoppers are highly variable in colour and markings, but most of the ones I see are brown or grey, with just one paler patch about half way along the fore edge of the wing case. For an entirely defenceless, sap-sucking bug, it obviously makes sense to be discreet. However this individual looks as though it's dressed up for a carnival - a wardrobe choice it may have regretted this afternoon, when I spotted it, swooped in, and caught it in a bug pot. Having trapped it on a shaded ivy hedge, I tapped it back out onto the better lit leaf of a nearby hazel tree so that I could photograph it, and then turned my attention elsewhere. When I looked back at the hazel I was surprised to find the froghopper still there, and now displaying itself to even better advantage on a leaf stem. Given a photo opportunity like that, I felt it would be rude to refuse.

Though they might seem like boring little bugs, froghoppers are actually rather interesting. If you'd like to know more about them, I recommend this article by Beth Askham of the Natural History Museum.

My second photo tonight is a companion piece to the image I blipped on Monday of a male Oak Bush-cricket. This afternoon I found two females down in the wild garden, one on the quince tree and this one on the dogwood, both of whom were quite calm and passive, in happy contrast to the male. I thought you might be interested in her impressive ovipositor, which is used to insert individual eggs into bark crevices, or underneath moss or lichen.