Spittlebug on a Macbook

Red cedar spittlebug - note red spot

I was working on a blog early on a cool morning, listening to the hummingbirds feeding overhead when a small dot began moving across the screen of my Macbook like an oversized period.  After enlarging a series of photographs I identified it with the help of Bugguide as a red cedar spittlebug (RCS), Clastoptera arborina.  We have written a blog on spittlebugs in their larval nymph stage, blowing bubbles out their you-know-what.

Even with my lack of entomological training, I deduced that this species is associated with red cedars (Juniperus virginiana) like the one overhead.  I found more details on the Hoppers of North Carolina web page.  (Who knew that tiny leaf hoppers had a fan club!).  Discoverlife.org has listed only 10 reported locations, but for an insect measuring only an eighth of an inch (3.5mm), that isn't particularly surprising.

It took a deep dive into Google to come up with any information on my tiny visitor.  The only in depth source I found was a 1984 paper by A. G. Wheeler in the Entomological Society of Washington, 

Spittle on juniper - Forestry Images CC

Eggs overwinter on terminal shoots of juniper.  The embryo lies in a hardened shell within the shoot until the nymph emerges and produces its spittle near the tips of the shoot.  It will pass through 5 instars, leaving small bits of powdery residue from its spittle.  Nymphs  are found from June to July, the adults from July to September.

As I reviewed the photograph above, I was curious about the out of focus red spot on several views.  RCS was patiently waiting on top of my Macbook so I took photographs from different views and BINGO, there it was, a mite! 

Part of my fascination with nature is the differences in scale.  Almost anything we see is capable of hosting another smaller creature to discover under magnification.  Consider again that this RCS was 3.5mm, the size of a small letter "o" on my computer screen.  By comparison, the mite is only 0.5mm!  Augustus De Morgan summarized this in A Budget of Paradoxes.

"Great fleas have little fleas upon their backs to bite 'em,
And little fleas have lesser fleas, and so ad infinitum.
And the great fleas themselves, in turn, have greater fleas to go on;
While these again have greater still, and greater still, and so on."

All this from a tiny dot moving across a computer screen.  Imagine what else is going on in trees and under our feet unseen every day!