lenrely's Identifications

Frothy spittle mass, the nymph hidden within, on one of the meadow spittlebug’s common host plants, the legume Bird's-foot Trefoil (Lotus corniculatus), cf. inaturalist.org/observations/221939866; scientists figured that this bug has more hosts than any other insect, then calculated that the Meadow Spittlebug feeds on more than 1,300 species of plants across 117 families—a world record for insects, perhaps due to a preference for sap from the xylem, the plant's main water-carrying structure: most sap-eating bugs feed off the plant's phloem (tissue transmitting sugar & other metabolic compounds), but unlike sap from the phloem, the liquid in xylem is similar across a diverse range of host plants