Today I want to take you to know about the arthropod wax cicada.
Wax cicadas
Ceisha distinctissima
Arthropods, Insects, Homoptera, Waxhopper. Also known as the green moth wax cicada and green-winged feather, it inhabits farmland or forests with warm climates, and mainly harms crops such as tea, oil tea, citrus, peach, and plum. It is distributed in Shandong, Jiangsu, Shanghai, Zhejiang, Jiangxi, Hunan, Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, Hainan, Sichuan, Guizhou, Yunnan and other provinces.
The wax cicada is a small insect, the adult body length is only 6 to 8mm, the body color is light green or milky green, the forewing is translucent elongated semi-oval, the net-like wing veins are clearly visible, and if you look closely, it is like a finely carved "jade earring", exuding a gentle and elegant temperament, very delicate and beautiful.
"Jade" is often used by the Chinese people to praise the character of gentlemen, but the wax cicada that looks like jade earrings is definitely not called "gentleman's conduct". Like the red bugs and lychee bugs introduced in previous issues, the wax cicadas of the moth have a sucking mouthpiece, and the adults hide in the back of the leaves of the plant to absorb the sap, and after the nymphs finish eating, they will also secrete white waxy flocculents on the branches, stems and leaves of the plants that lie down, affecting the photosynthesis of the plants and causing the vegetation to weaken; the adult and nymphs secrete honeydew, causing coal pollution disease, which will cause the plants to fall flowers and reduce production when the disease is serious. In the photo, the white waxy flocculent on the leaf surface of the plant is the secretion of the wax cicada from nymph feather to adult.
In addition, like the vicious diseases that can be transmitted when mosquitoes bite humans, when the wax cicada sucks the sap of the plant, it will have a high probability of transmitting the disease-causing fungus to the plant, thus achieving the effect of secondary damage to the plant. Its "jade" general "gentleman" temperament is matched with the "viciousness" of "bad things are done", and it has to be said that it is a "hypocrite" of the insect world.
Fan Yi is an ecological photographer. He has won the Grand Prize of the International Garden Photographer Annual Competition for 4 consecutive years and the first prize in the wild animal and plant category of the first China Eco-Photography Competition in 2018. He is committed to photographing the cultural landscape and biodiversity of western China, especially in Yunnan.
Coordinator: Lian Huiling
Character arrangement: Tamoto
Poster Design: Zheng Biyin