I don't think they're doing any damage, but can anyone ID this very colorful bug? There are several dozen of them living on my outdoor citrus trees, mainly the Changsha Mandarins and Ichang Lemons.





They are skittish little guys, jumping around to the opposite side of the leaf or stem when I get near. They can also jump 2-3 feet to adjacent branches or leaves. I haven't seen any obvious damage from them; in fact the only damage I've had all year is from grasshoppers early in the season and a few leaf miners more recently.

-Tim

Looks like some sort of leafhopper to me.

Ned

I agree, they are some type of leafhoppers. They do feed on plants; some of them also carry icky plant diseases, but I don't know what their impact is on citrus.

Nice photo, by the way!

I should add that leafhoppers do their damage by piercing the leaf or stem and sucking the sap out of the plant, so the damage might not be obvious at first. They are also known to spread certain diseases.

Ned

Thanks everyone - I wasn't familiar with leafhoppers but after doing some more google searching that led me to the specific species: Red-Banded Leafhoppers.

http://davesgarden.com/guides/bf/go/114/

Other sources note the leafhoppers are a disease vector for something nasty called "Citrus X Disease" so I'll get to work tomorrow eradicating them.

-Tim

While I suppose, technically, leafhoppers can and do eat a bit on a citrus tree, now and then, they are not considered "pests" in the sense that they never do enough damage to worry about. And in the US, they don't spread any diseases of citrus. One group of leafhoppers, the "sharpshooters" do spread citrus variegated chlorosis disease in Brazil, but we don't have that disease in North America (yet -- knocking on wood). It's very similar to Pierce's Disease of grape, which is in the US, and which is spread by our sharpshooters. But your bug is a leafhopper from a different group (not a sharpshooter), and I would not think worth worrying over.

Do you have any Rhododendrons nearby?
This looks like what we call in England the Rhododendron Leafhopper.
For details see
http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/JARS/v34n4/v34n4-wheeler.htm

Citrange,

No rhododendrons here -- but I do have plenty of azaleas in the yard, including some within about 40-50 feet of the affected citrus. I'l have to see if the leafhoppers visit the azaleas too since the article you referenced mentioned them.