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Jumping plant lice

Psyllidae
Psyllidae pachysylla species.jpg
Hackberry psyllid – Pachysylla sp.
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Insecta
Order: Hemiptera
Suborder: Sternorrhyncha
Superfamily: Psylloidea
Family: Psyllidae
Latreille, 1807
Genera

Acizzia Agonoscena Allocaridara Arytainilla Blastopsylla Boreioglycaspis Cacopsylla Cryptoneossa Ctenarytaina Diaphorina Eucalyptolyma Euphyllura Glycaspis Heteropsylla Prosopidopsylla Psylla Psyllopsis Retroacizzia Tetragonocephela and others (see text)


Acizzia Agonoscena Allocaridara Arytainilla Blastopsylla Boreioglycaspis Cacopsylla Cryptoneossa Ctenarytaina Diaphorina Eucalyptolyma Euphyllura Glycaspis Heteropsylla Prosopidopsylla Psylla Psyllopsis Retroacizzia Tetragonocephela and others (see text)

Jumping plant lice or psyllids form the family Psyllidae of small plant-feeding insects that tend to be very host-specific, i.e. each plant-louse species only feeds on one plant species (monophagous) or feeds on a few closely related plants (oligophagous). Together with aphids, phylloxerans, scale insects and whiteflies, they form the group called Sternorrhyncha, which is considered to be the most "primitive" group within the true bugs (Hemiptera). They have traditionally been considered a single family, Psyllidae, but recent classifications divide the group into a total of seven families; the present restricted definition still includes more than 70 genera in the Psyllidae. Psyllid fossils have been found from the early Permian before the flowering plants evolved. The explosive diversification of the flowering plants in the Cretaceous was paralleled by a massive diversification of associated insects, and many of the morphological and metabolic characters that the flowering plants exhibit may have evolved as defenses against herbivorous insects.

Several genera of psyllids, especially among the Australian fauna, secrete coverings called "lerps" over their bodies, presumably to conceal them from predators and parasites.


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Wikipedia

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