Planthopper
Flatidae · True bugs
Planthopper
Brooklyn Botanic Garden, 24 August 2025
A flatid planthopper on a stem in the Botanic Garden in late August, pale lavender and faintly translucent, wings held tent-like over the body. The flatids are sap-suckers of shrubs and vines across the eastern United States, and the Citrus Flatid Planthopper is the commonest of them around New York in late summer.
A family with a knack for looking more like a chip of plastic or a bud scale than an insect, which is presumably the point. The lavender bloom is wax, and points to the Citrus Flatid, though a fresh adult of one or two of its relatives can look much the same. The nymphs cover themselves in white waxy fluff and look like mould.
Birds, insects, plants and other wildlife, mostly from Brooklyn, with some from further afield.
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