HE FULGORIDAE, OR PLANT- HOPPERS OF MISSISSIPPI, INCLUDING THOSE OF POSSIBLE OCCURRENCE UC-NRLF B 3 371 S7h A TAXONOMIC, BIOLOGICAL, ECOLOGICAL AND ECONOMIC STUDY 1928 DISSERTATION PRESENTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN THE GRAD- UATE SCHOOL OF THE OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY VERS'TY ] BY HERBERT LAWRENCE DOZIER, B. S., M. S. THE OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY 1922 EXCHANGE THE FULGORIDAE OR PLANT-HOPPERS OF MISSISSIPPI, INCLUDING THOSE OF POSSIBLE OCCURRENCE A TAXONOMIC, BIOLOGICAL, ECOLOGICAL AND ECONOMIC STUDY DISSERTATION PRESENTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN THE GRAD- UATE SCHOOL OF THE OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY BY HERBERT LAWRENCE DOZIER, B. S., M. S. THE OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY 1922 BIOLOGT LIBRARY G EXCHANGI AUTOBIOGRAPHY I, HERBERT LAWRENCE DOZIER, was born in Wilming- ton, North Carolina, June 24, 1895. I received all of my secondary school education in the public and high schools of the city of Columbia, South Carolina; the first year of my undergraduate work was spent at Clemson A. & M. College of South Carolina ; the remaining years at the University of South Carolina from which institution I received the Degree of Bachelor of Science in 1915. After working six months as Field Assistant with the U. S. Bureau of Entomology field station at Columbia, South Carolina, I accepted an Assistantship in Entomology at the Florida Agricultural Experiment Station. During this period half of my time was spent in Station duties and the remainder in the Gradu- ate School of the University of Florida from which institu- tion I received the Degree of Master of Science in June, 1917. I then worked with the U. S. Bureau of Entomology as Scientific Assistant in South Carolina and Arizona. From June, 1918, to August, 1919, was spent in service, mostly overseas, in the U. S. Army. The sessions of 1919- 20 and 1921-22 were spent as a University Fellow in Entom- ology at the Ohio State University as a candidate for the Degree of Doctor .of Philosophy. From June, 1920, to Sep- tember 15, 1921, was spent as Assistant Entomologist of the State Plant Board of Mississippi. 684677 MISSISSIPPI AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION Technical Bulletin No. 14 > THE FULGORID^E or Plant-Hoppers of Mississippi, Including Those of Possible Occurrence A Taxonomic, Biological, Ecological, and Economic Study By Herbert L. Dozier, Ph. D. Fig. 1 Adult Scolops perdix Uhler Mississippi Agricultural Experiment Station A. & M. COLLEGE, MISSISSIPPI J. R. RICKS, Director December, 1926 The Fulgoridae or Plant-Hoppers of Mis- sissippi, Including Those of Possible Oc- currence; a Taxonomic, Biological, Ecological, and Economic Studyvw^'; By Herbert L. Dozier, Ph. D. INTRODUCTION Kirkaldy has called attention to the fact that the genus Fulgora was erected by Linnaeus in 1767 (Syst. Nat., Ed. 12, Tom. I, 703), and the type was fixed by Sulzer in 1776 (Algek. Gesch. Ins. 85), as europaea Linn. This being the earliest genus and type, the super-family and the family take their names from it. The erection of the Family Fulgoridae is credited to Latreille in 1807. While the Membracids have the prothorax developed into many curious and odd shapes, in Fulgorids the head has undergone widely varied development. In both groups, this specialization into odd shapes and forms seems to have no definite or known purpose other than that of possible pro- tection and mimicry. The family is remarkable for certain exotic forms which it contains. Among these may be mentioned the great Lantern-fly of South America and the strange Candle-flies of China and the East Indies. The fact that some of the species were supposed to be phosphorescent has given the name of Lantern-flies to members of the family. However, none of our native species are phosphorescent and for them at least this name is a misnomer. A better name, as sug- gested by Prof. Z. P. Metcalf, would be that of Plant- hoppers. Members of this family reach their highest development in oddness of shape and more highly colored forms in the tropics. A great many of these insects have the curious faculty of excreting large quantities of a whitish flocculent wax. We find this capacity greatly developed in the tropi- * Contribution from the Dept. of Zoology and Entomology of the Ohio State University and the State Plant Board of Mississippi. 3 cal American genus Phenax, the members of which fly about with large masses of this waxy substance several times as long as themselves. Larvae of a maggot-like nature are frequently found hidden in the wax of the living Fulgorids of this genus. I { / I^th^forbii ,6f body the various genera differ so greatly to have . , tjia,t, if .only superficially examined, they appear in. :*\: \ vjeibf -littfe io'mnion. Some of them resemble very much small butterflies and moths and others might easily be mistaken for neuropterous insects. The nymphs are often totally different in appearance from the adults. All are vegetable feeders and are found on the under- sides of the leaves and along the stems of various herba- ceous plants, shrubs and trees, sucking the juices, prefer- ably from the larger veins or ribs. The average student and even the professional ento- mologist knows little or practically nothing about the Ful- goridae and the relative systematic position of its mem- bers. This is due primarily to the insufficient and widely scattered literature on the subject, which is generally not readily accessible to the ordinary worker. When the latter is so fortunate as to obtain access to the original reference it is usually only to find that it is in Latin, French or German. Early in his work upon Fulgoridae it became evident to the writer that a faunistic study of the group together with uniform keys and descriptions would be a welcome addition. A knowledge of the systematics of a group is essential before one can work out the economic status and the ecological relationships of its members. It is also necessary to know what forms occur within a State and their relative abundance. The material used for this treatise consisted of the large private collection of Prof. Herbert Osborn, kindly placed at my disposal, and a large amount of material collected by the writer in South Carolina, Florida and Mis- sissippi. While employed by the State Plant Board of Mississippi, from June 15, 1920, to September 15, 1921, opportunity was offered to do representative and intensive collecting and many notes were taken of food plants and ecological habitats. 4 The paper includes all of the species definitely known and those that are at all likely to occur within our terri- tory. It is only a beginning, however, and without doubt many new and interesting forms are yet to be discovered and described. To bring together in convenient form the widely scattered descriptions, I have given a rather full descrip- tion of each species that occurs in this region. I have drawn freely upon the original published sources, where these have been satisfactory, and have abbreviated, ampli- fied or otherwise modified these as the conditions required, after examining, where possible, large series of specimens many of which were types and paratypes. In a few cases actual specimens were not available and in these the de- scription is drawn up from the original to conform with the others. The keys are intended only for the forms known to inhabit the Southern United States. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The writer wishes to acknowledge here his great in- debtedness to Prof. Herbert Osborn, of the Ohio State University, under whose supervision and direction this work has been done. Credit is due him for constant advice and assistance and especially for the placing of many of his records and his entire private library and collections, the latter containing many type specimens, at my disposal. To Prof. R. W. Earned, he is much indebted for arrangement of the work in such a manner as to make varied and repre- sentative collecting possible. To Dr. E. D. Ball and W. L. McAtee the writer wishes to express appreciation for the kind courtesies and help they have extended him in the examination of type and other material. Mr. George Ainslie has kindly given the writer some valuable distribution records from his Tennessee and Florida collected material. The writer also wishes to thank Dr. Raymond C. Osburn and W. L. McAtee for their kindness in carefully reading and criticizing the manuscript. L. Chester Marston, Jr., of the Delaware Agricultural Experiment Station made figures 9, 17, 18 and 20. To these and all others who in any way have assisted him in the completion of this work, the writer hereby expresses his sincere thanks. 5 ECONOMIC STATUS The superfamily Fulgoroidea while of much economic importance in the warmer tropical portions of the World contains only a few really important pests in this country. The total damage caused by these insects, however, is without doubt not fully appreciated and given due con- sideration by most entomologists. Only those who under- take an intensive study of these small insects, some of which are very minute, realize how capable they are of inflicting serious economic losses. Plant hoppers suck their nourishment from the leaves and stems of plants in the form of sap, often unnoticed, until the leaves begin to wither, curl and distort, then be- come discolored and die. The sap is pumped out by means of a long beak or sucking-tube that by means of the man- dibular setae or piercing organs is capable of penetrating even very hard and tough tissues. The Sugar Cane Leaf-hopper, Perkinsiella saccharicida, is a rather serious pest of sugar cane and at one time threatened the entire crop in Hawaii.