Japananus hyalinus (Osborn)

Caution

Many of the insects depicted on these pages are outwardly similar and you should not use photographs as the sole means of identification. These pages form part of a scientific key which will assist a trained entomologist to identify the species accurately.

Japananus hyalinus (Osborn 1900)

Common Name: Japanese Maple Leafhopper

Subfamily/Tribe: Deltocephalinae: Scaphytopiini

Distribution: NSW, USA, Japan, Korea

Economic Status: On Japanese Maples, Acer palmatum, although it has not been found causing significant damage to its hosts in Australia.

Notes: The species was first noticed in Australia in 1997, at Orange in the Central Tablelands of New South Wales (Fletcher and Knight 1998). This species, first described from the USA (Osborn 1900), is apparently native to Japan (see Sanders and DeLong 1920: 19), from which it was introduced to North America with nursery stock of Japanese maples. It was subsequently (Matsumura 1914) also described from Japan. The shape of the head and transverse banding on the tegmina make it easily recognised in Australia.