Esta noticia apareció en noviembre de 2013 en la webpage del Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute:
http://stri.si.edu/english/about_stri/headline_news/news/article.php?id=1747
Es una de las investigaciones que hemos desarrollado y la compartimos con ustedes.
Some people swat at every insect that enters their personal space. Entomologists say it isn’t necessary to swat leafhoppers: the bugs’ needle-like mouthparts are just glorified drinking straws for sucking plant fluids.
However, in a chance conversation, research assistant, Edwin Domínguez Núñez, and staff scientist Annette Aiello confessed they both had been “bitten” by leafhoppers. Their subsequent search of the scientific literature turned up 37 reports of 27 species of Cicadellidae that have probed human skin worldwide in the past 100 years.
Domínguez and Aiello added 13 more species based on their own experiences in Panama. “One of four daytime attacks was by an individual of Dilobopterus stolli that alighted on Dominguez’s leg and probed repeatedly for some minutes without piercing the skin,” they report. “Captured in a vial and then placed on the leg of Domínguez’s wife, the insect immediately pierced her skin, causing pain and itching.”
http://stri.si.edu/english/about_stri/headline_news/news/article.php?id=1747
Es una de las investigaciones que hemos desarrollado y la compartimos con ustedes.
However, in a chance conversation, research assistant, Edwin Domínguez Núñez, and staff scientist Annette Aiello confessed they both had been “bitten” by leafhoppers. Their subsequent search of the scientific literature turned up 37 reports of 27 species of Cicadellidae that have probed human skin worldwide in the past 100 years.
Domínguez and Aiello added 13 more species based on their own experiences in Panama. “One of four daytime attacks was by an individual of Dilobopterus stolli that alighted on Dominguez’s leg and probed repeatedly for some minutes without piercing the skin,” they report. “Captured in a vial and then placed on the leg of Domínguez’s wife, the insect immediately pierced her skin, causing pain and itching.”
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A leafhopper species that probe human skin (Empoasca sp.).
Photo by Edwin Domínguez
Why would leafhoppers suck on humans instead of plants? One article speculated that waterstressed insects seek moisture by probing human skin. Another suggests they’re searching for salt. “We’re interested in these reports from an evolutionary perspective because they indicate that plant-feeders have the potential to become predators,” the researchers say.
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Article: Domínguez, E. and Aiello, A. 2013. Leafhoppers (Homoptera: Cicadellidae) that probe human skin: a review of the world literature and nineteen new records, from Panama. Terrestrial Arthropod Reviews 6:201-225.
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