Dogwood spittlebug
The dogwood spittlebug is a tiny insect from North America. Its babies hide inside a little blob of white foam on a plant stem. It looks like someone spat on the plant, which is how spittlebugs got their name.
How fast is it?
Fun facts
The baby makes its foam house itself. Inside the bubbles it stays wet and is hidden from hungry birds.
There are 10 slightly different local kinds of this one spittlebug.
Its English name comes from the dogwood, a kind of bush.
Most asked questions about Dogwood spittlebug
?What is the white foam on plants?
It is often a little foam house made by a baby spittlebug. The baby hides and stays wet inside it.
?Is the dogwood spittlebug dangerous?
No. It is a tiny harmless insect that drinks plant sap.
Myth buster
Myth: The white foam on plants is spit from a cuckoo or another animal.
Truth: No. It is a little bubble house made by a baby spittlebug, which hides inside.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Clastoptera proteus
- Group
- True bugs and cicadas
- Family
- Clastopteridae
- Classification
- Insecta > Hemiptera > Clastopteridae
- Lives on
- North America
Where the facts come from
- Clastoptera proteus (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
- Picture by S. Rae from Scotland, UK. 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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