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Sticker of Rhododendron leafhopper
Bug card No. 1157 of 1,500

Rhododendron leafhopper

Graphocephala fennahi
Eats: PlantsTrue bugs and cicadasGardens and meadows6 legs

The rhododendron leafhopper is a small, bright bug with green wings, purple tips and orange stripes. Its head and legs are yellow. If you come close, it jumps away in a flash. It lives on rhododendron bushes and drinks their sap.

Lives in
First from the mountains of the eastern United States, now also in Britain and Europe, in gardens and parks with rhododendrons
Length
7.4 to 9 mm (0.29 to 0.35 in)
females are a little bigger
Top speed
about 1.1 km/h (0.68 mph)
On foot, estimate
Can it hurt you?
Harmless
Harmless. It does not bite or sting people.
What does it eat?
It sucks sap from rhododendron plants with a mouth shaped like a tiny straw.
For real!Photo of Rhododendron leafhopper
Picture by André Karwath aka Aka. CC BY-SA 2.5, via Wikimedia Commons.

How big is it?

How long is it?

Rhododendron leafhopper about 9 mm long (0.35 in)A grain of rice about 6 mm (0.24 in)A toy building brick about 3.2 cm (1.3 in)
small enough to sit on your fingernailas long as 1.5 grains of rice in a rowcould run across a dinner table in 3.3 secondsmoves 34 times its own body length every second

How big is Rhododendron leafhopper compared to YOU?

Just maths in your browser. Nothing is saved or sent anywhere.

How fast is it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

1

Leafhoppers talk to each other with tiny shakes, or vibrations, that travel through the plant.

2

It came to Britain in the 1930s and to the rest of Europe in the 1970s, probably riding on rhododendron plants.

3

It lays its eggs inside the leaf in November. The babies hatch in late April.

4

The young ones are light yellow and have no wings. They become grown-ups in about three weeks.

5

Its relatives include cicadas, spittlebugs and treehoppers.

you asked

Most asked questions about Rhododendron leafhopper

?Is the rhododendron leafhopper harmful?

Not to people. It drinks sap from rhododendrons, but a study found it does not spread the bud blast disease.

?What does the rhododendron leafhopper eat?

Only sap from rhododendron plants, which it sucks up with its straw-like mouth.

?How big is a rhododendron leafhopper?

About 7 to 9 millimetres long. The females are a little bigger than the males.

Myth buster

Myth: Rhododendron leafhoppers give rhododendrons the bud blast disease.

Truth: A study in Germany found no link between the leafhoppers and that disease.

For bug experts

Scientific name
Graphocephala fennahi
Group
True bugs and cicadas
Family
Cicadellidae
Classification
Insecta > Hemiptera > Cicadellidae
Lives on
North America, Europe

Where the facts come from

  1. Graphocephala fennahi (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 André Karwath aka Aka. CC BY-SA 2.5, 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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