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The superfamily Cercopoidea, some members of which are called froghoppers and still others known as spittlebugs, are a group of in the suborder . Adults are capable of jumping many times their height and length, giving the group their common name, but many species are best known for their plant-sucking nymphs which produce foam shelters, and are referred to as "spittlebugs".


Taxonomy
Traditionally, most of this superfamily was considered a single family, the , but this family has been split into three families for many years now: the , , and . The tribe /ref>). More recently, in 2023, a phylogenetic analysis concluded that Cercopidae was not monophyletic, with the New World lineages representing the to all other cercopoids, and accordingly raised from subfamily to family status as in order to keep all of the cercopoid families monophyletic.


Spittlebug nymphs
These families are best known for the nymphal stage, which produces a cover of foamed-up plant sap visually resembling ; the nymphs are therefore commonly known as spittlebugs and their foam as cuckoo spit, frog spit, or snake spit. This characteristic spittle production is associated with the unusual trait of xylem feeding. Whereas most insects that feed on feed on the nutrient-rich fluid from the , Cercopidae utilize the much more dilute sap flowing upward from the roots via the . The large amount of excess water that must be excreted and the evolution of special breathing tubes allow the young spittlebug nymphs to grow in the relatively protective environment of the spittle.
(2025). 9781770859623, Firefly Books.
Normally an animal should not be able to survive on a diet so low in nutrients, but the insects' digestive system contains symbiotic bacteria that provide them with the essential amino acids. Two bacteria allow spittlebugs to thrive on low-nutrient meals May 28, 2020 www.sciencedaily.com accessed 11 May 2023

The foam serves a number of purposes. It hides the nymph from the view of predators and parasites, and it insulates against heat and cold, thus providing thermal control and also moisture control; without the foam, the insect would risk dehydration. The nymphs pierce plants and suck sap causing very little damage; much of the filtered fluids go into the production of the foam, which has an acrid taste, deterring predators. A few species are serious agricultural pests.

A small family in the group, the , known as the tube spittlebugs, is an outlier among the Cercopoidea because the nymphs live in tubes rather than producing foam as in the other families.

File:Spittlebug nymph (unknown species), East Lyn River, Devon, UK - Diliff.jpg|Spittlebug nymph Image:Spittlebug4383.JPG|Spittlebug nymph surrounded by foam for protection and moisture File:Spittlebug.webm|thumbtime=193|Spittlebug nymph reforming its protective bubble covering


Adults
Adult froghoppers jump from plant to plant; some species can jump up to vertically: a more impressive performance relative to body weight than . The froghopper can accelerate at over as it jumps (experiencing over 400 gs of acceleration). Spittlebugs can jump 100 times their own length. Spittlebugs Lucy M. Clark (April 29, 2017) Garden Ambition, accessed 11 May 2023

Many species of froghopper resemble , but can be distinguished by the possession of only a few stout spines on the , where leafhoppers have a series of small spines. Members of the family greatly resemble , due to a large thoracic spine, but the spine in machaerotids is an enlargement of the scutellum, where treehoppers have the enlarged. Members of the family have their wings modified to form false heads at the tail end, an antipredator adaptation. Many adult can bleed reflexively from their , and the hemolymph appears to be distasteful; they are often colored.


Evolutionary history
The oldest froghoppers are known from the . froghoppers are divided into two main families, known from the Early Jurassic to early Late Cretaceous of Asia, which are thought to be ancestral to living froghoppers, and , which is known from the late Middle Jurassic and early Late Cretaceous of Asia. The genus the Middle Jurassic of China mixes characters of both families and cannot be assigned to either. The genus from the aged of Brazil appears to be derived from the Procerocopidae and closely related to the .


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