E30: Planthoppers are the mosquitoes of the plant world, and collecting in Costa Rica!

Dr. Brian Bahder is an Assistant Professor at the University of Florida’s Fort Lauderdale Research and Education Center. He talks to me about his paper published in the September 6 issue of the Zootaxa in which he and his coauthors describe a new species of planthopper!

We discuss what planthoppers are, how they can spread plant diseases, planthoppers as the mosquitoes of the plant world, how easy it is to find new planthopper species, and the strange joke behind the name of this new species!

The title of the paper is “A new species of planthopper in genus Herpis (Hemiptera: Derbidae) from lowland tropical rainforest in Costa Rica.” The paper is currently Open Access and available here: https://www.mapress.com/zt/article/view/zootaxa.5032.1.7

To learn more about Dr. Brian Bahder, visit his lab’s website: https://www.bahderlab.com/

For pictures of leafhoppers and planthoppers, check out these links: Planthopper: https://uwm.edu/field-station/acanalonia-planthoppers/

Leafhopper: https://citybugs.tamu.edu/test-home-page/leafhopper-2/

To learn more about the Fort Lauderdale Research and Education Center, follow them on Twitter (@UFIFASftlaudREC), Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/UF.IFAS.FLREC ), or their website (https://flrec.ifas.ufl.edu/ ).