Sibovia pileata and the Honeydew Launch
A closer look at Sibovia pileata, a quiet forest drifter with a remarkable method for ejecting the surplus of its sugar-rich life.
What is even going on here? Sibovia pileata is an angular little jewel of a leafhopper, all turquoise and saffron lines. But this photo shows something strange and almost unique among leafhoppers. I caught this little guy in the act of ejecting a tiny droplet from his rear with more force and speed than makes sense for a creature only a few millimeters long. Leafhoppers don't have many defenses, but they do have this: a honeydew catapult.
Leafhoppers live on sugar water. They spend their lives tapping the phloem; the circulatory system of plants, and guzzling up plant juice like there is no tomorrow. Phloem sap is thin and extremely low in nitrogen, so leafhoppers must process enormous volumes of it to extract enough of that one critical nutrient. The result is constant overpressure in the gut. The solution? Fire the waste back out into the world at spectacular velocity. In Sibovia and its close relatives, the behavior—if ever seen by the human eye—is comic magic: immaculate little insects launching droplets like caffeinated Nerf guns.
Now think about this. Even though this photo, which I took in Cartago Province, Costa Rica, captures a moment basically never seen by humans, it's happening millions of times per second across the planet. Leafhoppers belong to one of the most species-rich families of insects on Earth. There are roughly 20,000 described species, but scientists believe there may be closer to 120,000. They appear in nearly every habitat where flowering plants grow, from Central American cloud forests, Midwestern cornfields, Tunisian olive orchards, tropical understories, Oregon gardens. Each species is exquisitely tuned to the plant it feeds on, the predators it must evade, and the microlandscape it inhabits.
Despite their abundance, these little honeydew bombers rarely get attention from us humans. Most people never see them up close, and even fewer get to see their magical colors and design patterns.
Leafhoppers evolved a specialized structure called the anal stylus, which they use to flick honeydew droplets away from their bodies so they don't accumulate and grow mold. High-speed studies show that some species synchronize these ejections with a flex of the abdomen, launching droplets with near-perfect efficiency. It's a marvel of micro-scale physics: surface tension, elasticity, and timing bundled into a behavior that evolved simply because these insects drink too much sugar.
Without a macro lens or a magnifying glass, the world of Sibovia pileata and other leafhoppers goes unseen. But you can train yourself to see them. Once you know their behaviors and their habitats, you can spot them ejecting themselves off leaves on walks near marshes or alongside rivers. And once you know how to see them from afar, you know how to approach them close up. We humans are actually quite good at detecting tiny things in complex natural environments: we evolved as generalists, scanning leaf litter and understory for food, medicine, and movement.
So many leafhoppers have exquisite colors. Think about it this way: for anyone drawn to vivid colors in nature, leafhoppers rival coral reef fish in brilliance. There are about 6,000 reef fish species on Earth—already among the most vibrantly colored animals alive. But with an estimated 120,000 leafhopper species out there, the variety of colors and patterns is staggering.