New video of world’s fastest front-flipping insects
For immediate release ‐ October 05, 2020
Contact: Adrian Smith, 919.707.8095. Images available upon request
Dr. Adrian Smith, Head of the Museum’s Evolutionary Biology & Behavior Research Lab, has posted a new video of jumping plant lice.
Jumping plant lice, or psyllids, are the fastest front-flipping insects, but not many people know about how amazing they are! Dr. Smith set out to film the high-flying flips of these plant-feeding, often thought of as “pest”, insects. They are hemipterans in the superfamily Psylloidea and are often referred to as “psyllids.” Most of the shots, unless otherwise labeled in the video, were captured at 3,200 frames per second.