Australian insectsFroggatt, Walter W. (Walter Wilson)
Science
Australian insects
Froggatt, Walter W. (Walter Wilson)
Insects -- Australia
The typical forms have the front of the head either produced into a
lance-shaped structure, or the face and vertex either rounded in front
or forming an acute angle. The eyes are large and stand out on the
sides of the head; the ocelli, usually two in number, are situated
below or near the eyes and are placed in the cavities on the cheeks; in
a few species there are three ocelli, while in others they are wanting.
The antennae, situated beneath the eyes, and often very peculiar in
structure, consist of two short joints surmounted with a bristle.
Many are large handsome insects with bright coloured tegmina and wings;
others are of delicate green and grey tints, quite moth-like in form,
but can be easily distinguished by the way they rest with their stiff
roof-like wings, and by their active jumping habits. The legs are often
long, and the hind pair are furnished with a few stout spines on the
tibae, but never thickly spined as in the Jassidae. Many of our larger
species are found both in the larval and perfect state, on tree trunks.
A few species are well-known pests and have an extended range beyond
Australia.
Donovan described and figured several species (Insects of New Holland,
1815); Westwood figured and described two in his “Monograph of the
Genus Fulgora” (Trans. Linn. Soc. 1837): but the majority of our
species are described by Walker (Brit. Mus. Cat. Homoptera, 1851), and
he also named others in “Insecta Saundersiana, Homoptera,” 1858, which
describes the insects in W. W. Saunders’ great collection.
_Siphanta acuta_, better known under the name of _Cromna acuta_, is one
of our commonest fulgorids, moth-like in appearance, of a pale green
colour, with broad square-cut fore wings and a short pointed head. It
measures about an inch across the outspread wings. It has a wide range
in Australia; and its pale green fluffy larvae feed upon the sap of
many plants, and readily jump when touched. It is also well known in
Hawaii, Sandwich Islands, where it is called the “torpedo-bug” from the
way it jumps; and it is said to be a pest on the coffee plants (Smith
Annual Report, Hawaii 1904). A number of species of these moth-like
forms are described by Walker from Australia and Tasmania, and placed
in the Genus _Bythoscopus_, which genus, when further studied, will
probably be much subdivided.
[Illustration: =Fig. 159.=--_Scolypopa (Pochazia)
australis._
The Common Passion-vine Hopper.]
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