Leafhopper, u, face, Dominican Republic
Leafhopper, From one of our expeditions to the Dominican Republic, pulled from the cast off pile as too pretty to cast off. I am not a leafhopper person, so this remains only as "leafhopper" . That said, leafhoppers and other plant sucking insect ilk are one of several covert layers of biodiversity that few are aware of. For example, many leafhoppers are specialists feeding only on a select few species of native plants. Again, this takes us back to Nature-based strategies that look to creating and maintaining plantscapes as targeted biodiverse native plant groups (versus: we like pretty color flowers groups) and then the insects etc. backfill automatically (as least far as we are concerned). since we know so little about the these covert insects its the best we can do. There's a meandering account for you. Photo by Cole Cheng who used to be an intern in the lab until fear fear of the Rona left only me.
We Are Made One with What We Touch and See
We are resolved into the supreme air,
We are made one with what we touch and see,
With our heart's blood each crimson sun is fair,
With our young lives each spring impassioned tree
Flames into green, the wildest beasts that range
The moor our kinsmen are, all life is one, and all is change.
- Oscar Wilde. Original public domain image from Flickr