Jumping Plant Louse

Jumping Plant Louse

genera (see text)
Acizzia
Agonoscena
Allocaridara
Arytainilla
Blastopsylla
Boreioglycaspis
Cacopsylla
Cryptoneossa
Ctenarytaina
Diaphorina
Eucalyptolyma
Euphyllura
Glycaspis
Heteropsylla
Pachypsylla
Prosopidopsylla
Psylla
Psyllopsis
Retroacizzia
Tetragonocephela
and others

Psyllids or jumping plant lice are small plant-feeding insects that tend to be very host specific, i.e. they only feed on one plant species (monophagous) or feed on a few related plants (oligophagous). Together with aphids, phylloxerans, scale insects and whiteflies they form the group called Sternorrhyncha, which is considered to be the most "primitive" group within the true bugs (Hemiptera). They have traditionally been considered a single family, Psyllidae, but recent classifications divide the group into a total of seven families; the present restricted definition still includes more than 70 genera in the Psyllidae.

Psyllid fossils have been found from the early Permian before the flowering plants evolved. The explosive diversification of the flowering plants in the Cretaceous was paralleled by a massive diversification of associated insects, and many of the morphological and metabolic characters that the flowering plants exhibit may have evolved as defenses against herbivorous insects.

Several genera of psyllids, especially among the Australian fauna, secrete coverings called "lerps" over their bodies, presumably to conceal them from predators and parasites.