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Sticker of European lantern fly
Bug card No. 1591 of 4,939

European lantern fly

Dictyophara europaea
Name means: “the one who wears a net, after the net of veins on its wings”
Eats: PlantsTrue bugs and cicadasGardens and meadows6 legs

The European lantern fly is a light green planthopper with a pointy, cone-shaped head that sticks out in front. Its wings are clear like glass, with pretty green veins. It hops around in warm, grassy places.

Lives in
Most of Europe, North Africa and parts of Asia, in dry grassy places
Length
0.9 to 1.3 cm (0.35 to 0.51 in)
Top speed
about 1.3 km/h (0.81 mph)
On foot, estimate
Can it hurt you?
Harmless
Harmless. It cannot bite or sting people.
What does it eat?
It sucks sap from many kinds of meadow plants, like yarrow, grasses and toadflax.
For real!Photo of European lantern fly
Picture by Slimguy. CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

How big is it?

How long is it?

European lantern fly about 1.3 cm long (0.51 in)A grain of rice about 6 mm (0.24 in)A toy building brick about 3.2 cm (1.3 in)
as long as 2 grains of rice in a rowcould run across a dinner table in 2.8 secondsmoves 28 times its own body length every second

How big is European lantern fly compared to YOU?

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How fast is it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

1

Its name was borrowed from a different insect, a big lantern fly from another family.

2

The mother lays her eggs in the soil and covers each egg with earth, using special tools at the tip of her body.

3

Lantern flies talk to each other with tiny shakes and buzzes that travel through the plants.

4

There is a rare kind of this insect with a pink body.

you asked

Most asked questions about European lantern fly

?Is the European lantern fly dangerous?

No. It only drinks plant sap and is harmless to people.

?How big is the European lantern fly?

It is about 1 to 1.3 centimetres long.

For bug experts

Scientific name
Dictyophara europaea
Group
True bugs and cicadas
Family
Dictyopharidae
Classification
Insecta > Hemiptera > Dictyopharidae
Lives on
Europe, Africa, Asia

Where the facts come from

  1. Dictyophara europaea (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 Slimguy. CC BY 4.0, 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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More from the same group: True bugs and cicadas

Also at home here: Gardens and meadows

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