I spied one of these striking, yellow and black true bugs a couple of years ago on what I believe is a type of dogwood near one of the water garden trails, but I wasn’t able to get very good photos.
After scanning the trees in that area in the past week, I was happy to find another Clastoptera proteus, or dogwood spittlebug, and this one obliged for a photo shoot.
The first thing you might ask when you see this insect (as I did), is “Where are the eyes?” In fact, it’s not easy to tell which end of this bug is the front. Hint: The area with the three yellow racing stripes is the head, and the eyes are at the outside edge of the two foremost stripes.
When these bugs are young, they use a built-in piercing straw, or rostrum, to feed on the juices of dogwoods, huckleberries, and related species. Like all spittlebugs, doing so gives them much more liquid than they can process, so they excrete it out their back ends. So, yeah, it’s not really spit.
The bubbles they produce serve several purposes: hiding the soft and immature bugs from predators, providing insulation against extreme temperatures, and keeping the youngsters from drying out. They even add a special chemical to the mix that makes the foam last longer.
Adult dogwood spittlebugs are great jumpers, and can quickly scurry along plant stems and leaves, but they don’t fly much, even though they do have functional wings.
Females punch holes in dogwood twigs in the fall and lay eggs under the bark. Eggs hatch in late spring, and the immature nymphs make masses of spittle in June and July. I’ll have to look for spittle wads next year on these trees.
According to the website “Minnesota Seasons,” Clastoptera proteus are new to Washington, Idaho and western Montana. My dogwood spittlebug photos are the first record of them in Oregon on BugGuide.
Stay curious!
See more of Karen’s work here.
Sources:
Minnesota Seasons page on Dogwood spittlebugs: http://www.minnesotaseasons.com/Insects/dogwood_spittlebug.html. Accessed 9/6/24.
University of Wisconsin page on spittlebugs, generally: https://hort.extension.wisc.edu/articles/spittlebugs/. Accessed 9/6/24.