A REVIEW OF THE DESERT LEAFHOPPERS OF THE 

 ORGERINI (RHYNCHOTA FULGORIDAE). 



By E. D. Ball and Albert Hartzell. 



Stal^ in 1859, figured and described Orgerius rhyparus from 

 material collected at San Francisco and for many years the 

 relation of this species to the other members of the group 

 remained an unsettled question. About ten years ago it chanced 

 to be the good fortune of the senior writer while collecting 

 Homoptera in California to rediscover Stal's species and secure 

 sufficient material to throw some light on the interpretation of 

 the characters and classification of this aberrant and interest- 

 ing tribe of Fulgoridae. Collections were made covering Oregon, 

 Idaho, Utah, Nevada, California and Lower California, Mexico. 



The adults of the Orgerini are wingless with brachypterous 

 elytra and resemble the nymphs of winged species. They pre- 

 sent a grotesque and unusual appearance in that they assume 

 an upright position in walking on their long, slender legs; 

 their short, stout bodies and their long, pointed cephalic 

 processes together with a peculiar strut in locomotion give the 

 insects a unique place among Nature's odd creatures. The 

 rostrum is remarkably long, in some of the more upright 

 species, exceeding the abdomen and instead of carrying it 

 inclined forward as most leafhoppers do in feeding these insects 

 feed with the rostrum running down the abdomen and extend- 

 ing beyond into the plant tissue. These odd adaptations seem 

 to fit the insects to the hot, dry inhospitable desert regions of 

 the Southwest and apparently is an arrangement to lift the 

 body from the burning heat of the sands. Among the host 

 plants recorded for the various species are some of the more 

 common xerophytic vegetation such as Mormon tea, sage 

 brush, tree Yucca and chaparall. 



In 1909, the senior'^ writer published an account of some of 

 the material he collected from this region proposing the genera 

 Timodema and Orgamara with a number of new species. In 

 1913, Oshanin^ published a synopsis of the tribe Orgerini of the 



iPreg. Eugen. Resa. Ins., p. 274, 1859. 



2 Ball, E. D., Proc. Bio. Soc. Wash., Vol. 12, pp. 197-204, Dec, 1909. 



' Oshanin, B. P., Insecta Hemiptera, Vol. 3, part 1, pp. 1-113, 1913. 



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