Fascinating froghoppers
While out admiring my bee-covered lavender and salvias the other day, I noticed they were also completely awash with cuckoo spit, looking like miniature blobs of bubble bath around the joints of the stems. Apart from the whimsical romance of its folksy name, which came about as its appearance happens to coincide with the summer arrival of the cuckoo, there’s a lot that’s appealing about cuckoo spit. It’s actually produced by the larvae of the spittlebug or froghopper, a tiny insect up to a centimetre long that gets its name from its habit of jumping if threatened – plus its blunt, rounded ‘face’ looks charmingly like a little frog. They’re all speckled brown or beige except for one colourful character, the red and black froghopper, which stands out from the rest with dramatic wing markings. Amazingly, the adults can jump with a powerful G-force up to 70cm (2¼ft) high due to hefty hind legs. It’s said that this is a greater feat than the flea and similar to a human jumping over a tower block. It’s in late summer and autumn that froghoppers lay their eggs in plant stem crevices, which then overwinter, stay where they are and hatch in late spring. It’s then that these nymphs create white bubbles to live in as they go through the stages to become adults – it’s thought to be protection from predators but actually there’s a species of wasp that specialises in picking out froghopper nymphs from the ‘spit’ and feeding them to their young!
The young froghoppers – creamy white, tiny versions of their parents – keep under cover in the bubbles and keep moist in there, too, as they suck plant sap for food. After a heavy feast, the froghoppers then produce excess plant sap liquid from their rear ends – it’s this that turns into the cuckoo spit.
Cuckoo spit looks a little unattractive but other than that froghoppers actually do little damage to plants, so they’re nothing to worry about. Once the nymphs become adults the froth disappears and they move freely about the garden, unencumbered. However, it’s helpful to record any sightings as there’s concern that froghoppers are potential vectors of the bacterial plant disease Xylella. Do so at www. spittlebugsurvey.co.uk.