Small World Discoveries

HEMIPTERA > AUCHENORRHYNCHA > FULGOROMORPHA > Cixiidae

The FULGOROMORPHA infraorder is very poorly represented in Britain compared with most countries. We only have 90 species, which is an extremely small percentage of the total number that have been described worldwide, and we only have four families; Cixiidae, Delphacidae, Issidae and Tettigometridae.

Strictly speaking, they're all planthoppers even though we refer to some species by different names.

I've only photographed a few of these species and don't expect to include many more, but with one new addition and a couple of other amendments, I've had to extend the section onto two pages.

This page covers the cixiid planthoppers, or lacehoppers as we prefer to call them due to their membranous, lace-like forewings. The other families have now been moved to the following page. The largest and most diverse group are the delphacid planthoppers, which includes the majority of species.  

The Cixiidae family includes 12 species, but only two, possibly three depending on where you live, could be regarded as common. The remainder are either classified as 'nationally scarce' or are pretty much restricted to certain areas or locations. Available distribution data suggests that only three are likely to be found in my general area; the two so-called common species featured below and possibly one other, which is much rarer.

The most frequently observed species in most areas is the Common Lacehopper [Cixius nervosus], followed by the variably coloured Spotted Lacehopper [Tachycixius pilosus]. I'm happy that I'm able to include photos of both species, but couldn't understand why I'd only seen them a few times, until I looked at the NBN Atlas records to discover that they're nowhere near as common locally as I thought they'd be. In fact, only one solitary record for Cixius nervosus has been submitted from Dorset during the past few years and that was way back in 2018. I suspect that they're just poorly recorded, but it could be that they're simply not as common in this area of the country as they are elsewhere.

One of the 'nationally scarce' species that I might find locally is the Saltmarsh Lacehopper [Pentastiridius (Oliarus) leporinus], which hasn't been seen in Dorset for many years, but has been recorded recently from a couple of sites in Hampshire that I could visit; namely Hythe Spartina Marsh NR on the western side of Southampton Water and Matley Bog in the New Forest. It has also been confirmed from two other locations in the forest, one from Matley Heath, which could actually be Matley Bog, and the other from Hatchet Pond, which is interesting as the 'British Bugs' website confirms that the species is only known from coastal wetland grasses in the upper saltmarsh zone, which doesn't tally with the New Forest locations. I'm not familiar with any of these sites, so will keep an open mind.

Updated, Feb.25 (v.4)