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Sticker of Lantana treehopper
Bug card No. 2493 of 4,939

Lantana treehopper

Aconophora compressa
Eats: PlantsTrue bugs and cicadasGardens and meadows6 legs

The lantana treehopper is a little brown bug shaped like a thorn. Sitting on a stem, it looks like part of the plant. It lives in big crowds and drinks sap from plant stems.

Lives in
Mexico, Central America and Colombia, and brought to Australia
Length
8 mm (0.31 in)
Top speed
about 1 km/h (0.62 mph)
On foot, estimate
Can it hurt you?
Harmless
Harmless to people. It just drinks plant sap.
What does it eat?
It sucks sap from the stems of plants, mostly lantana. In Australia it also likes fiddlewood trees.
For real!Photo of Lantana treehopper
Picture by James Niland from Brisbane, Australia. CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

How big is it?

How long is it?

Lantana treehopper about 8 mm long (0.31 in)A grain of rice about 6 mm (0.24 in)A toy building brick about 3.2 cm (1.3 in)
small enough to sit on your fingernailcould run across a dinner table in 3.6 secondsmoves 35 times its own body length every second

How big is Lantana treehopper compared to YOU?

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How fast is it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

1

People brought it to Australia in 1995 to fight a weed called lantana, but it started eating fiddlewood trees too.

2

The mother lays her eggs on a stem and then stays to guard them from hungry enemies.

3

Its babies change their skin five times and are grown up in about 45 days.

4

It makes lots of sweet sticky juice called honeydew, and black mould can grow on it.

you asked

Most asked questions about Lantana treehopper

?How big is the lantana treehopper?

It is up to 8 millimetres long, about the size of a grain of rice.

?What does the lantana treehopper eat?

It drinks sap from plant stems, mostly lantana and fiddlewood.

For bug experts

Scientific name
Aconophora compressa
Group
True bugs and cicadas
Family
Membracidae
Classification
Insecta > Hemiptera > Membracidae
Lives on
North America, South America, Australia and Oceania
Also known as
Lantana bug, Lantana sap-sucking bug, Lantana stemsucking treehopper

Where the facts come from

  1. Aconophora compressa (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
  2. Picture by James Niland from Brisbane, Australia. CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia Commons. The sticker of this bug is drawn from this picture.

If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.

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