2024 June 19 Red Banded Leaf Hopper and Bioluminescence

This tiny Red Banded Leaf Hopper has the coolest markings that make your eyeballs go buggy. 

Carli has made an awesome discovery! We were sitting on the porch when the lightning bugs came out. Carli loves the cool bright stripes on this little Red Banded Leaf Hopper and she began to make a video of it on the Common Milkweed. All of a sudden she yells, “It’s flashing!” I came over and it was true, it was making little quick light flashes from its hind end at intervals similar to the lightning bugs. She took tons of videos (I wish blogger would allow me to post videos but it never works). 

We looked online and it says nothing about bioluminescence. It mentions something it does like excreting water droplets, but that’s not what we were seeing. It was more like camera flashes.

Here’s a still shot from one of our videos. 

I emailed the Chief Science Officer and Entomologist at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, Gavin Svenson, and was delighted that he replied quickly:

I love that he leaves his answer open. That’s a true scientific response. 

I believe that everyone who makes observations is participating in science. Discoveries happen in all kinds of ways, both in labs and back yards. Who knows? Maybe it’s a drop of water…or maybe something more…