Flatid leaf bug
The flatid leaf bug is a little bug from Madagascar with wide pink wings that it holds up like a tent. Many of them sit together on a stem in a neat group. Together they look just like a pink flower spike.
How fast is it?
Fun facts
Its babies have no wings. Instead they are covered in fluffy white wax with a tail of waxy curls.
If you disturb a grown-up, it can jump away.
The babies make lots of sweet, sticky honeydew, and a bird called Coquerel's coua comes to eat it.
Pretending to be a flower may help keep it safe from hungry birds.
Most asked questions about Flatid leaf bug
?Why does the flatid leaf bug look like a flower?
Many of them sit together with their pink wings up, so the group looks like a flower spike.
?Where does the flatid leaf bug live?
In dry tropical forests in Madagascar.
?What does the flatid leaf bug eat?
It sucks sap from a climbing plant.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Phromnia rosea
- Group
- True bugs and cicadas
- Family
- Flatidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Hemiptera > Flatidae
- Lives on
- Africa
- Also known as
- Flower-spike bug
Where the facts come from
- Flatida rosea (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 Charles J. Sharp. CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons. The round sticker of this bug is cut from the same 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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