Buffalo Tree Hopper on Khair

[Neil Soares]

Hi,  Thought this might be interesting. Photographed at my farm at Shahapur on Sunday.       Young Khair [Acacia catechu] saplings are susceptible to grazing animals. By providing food resources to ants in the form of extrafloral nectaries [near the base of the leaflets] the plant makes it obligatory for the ants to protect them.     The Buffalo Tree Hopper [Leptocentrus taurus] sucks sap from the plant and is hence a serious pest. Ideally, the ants should also rid the plant of this pest except for its secret weapon : Honeydew. Their excreta called Honeydew is rich in sugar acids, amino acids, vitamins, alcohol and carbohydrates. It is excreted in the form of tiny liquid droplets. Ants protect these hymenopterans from predators and in return are rewarded with honeydew.     The Common Godzilla Ant [Camponotus compressus] uses its antennae to tap the body of the treehopper to induce it to release honeydew.    Sending a few photographs.                             With regards,                               Neil Soares.

[tanay bose]

Thanks for sharing the information something new for me

Tanay

--
Tanay Bose
Research Assistant & Teaching Assistant
Department of Botany
University of British Columbia
3529-6270 University Blvd.
Vancouver, B.C. V6T 1Z4 (Canada)
Phone: 778-323-4036

[kiran srivastava]

...and whilst walking in the forest sometimes one feels minute drops of 'rain' which is nothing but honeydew that Dr. Soares talks about!

Cheers,

Kiran Srivastava

Mumbai

On Tue, Aug 17, 2010 at 11:22 PM, Neil Soares <drneil...@yahoo.com> wrote:

[Pankaj Oudhia]

Have you ever tasted it Kiran ji? In Traditional Healing it is used as medicine and I have documented this knowledge.

regards

Pankaj Oudhia

[Usha Desai]

Neil
nice photographs. One can see the pronotum of the hopper  whch looks like a thorn on the acacia tree...helping it to camouflage.
and info about buffalo hoppers is interesting..
Pankajji
 interesting that this liquid is  is used in traditional healing and glad you have documented itHow do the tribal  collect the honeydew?
cheers Usha

[Pankaj Oudhia]

Thanks Usha ji for your message. I have written about collection procedure in my report titled "Management of Type 2 Diabetes through Traditional Healing Methods." Here is link for this report but I must suggest you to wait for a while as Google is indexing these links. It is bit difficult to get the exact information in over 10 million pages by visiting directly to the link.

http://pankajoudhia.com/newwork.html

regards

Pankaj Oudhia

[cf ngwlc]

Dear Neil and Others,

Thanks for excellent pictures and useful information.

Bharat Pathak

On Aug 19, 1:34 am, Pankaj Oudhia <pankajoud...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Thanks Usha ji for your message. I have written about collection procedure
> in my report titled "Management of Type 2 Diabetes through Traditional
> Healing Methods." Here is link for this report but I must suggest you to
> wait for a while as Google is indexing these links. It is bit difficult to
> get the exact information in over 10 million pages by visiting directly to
> the link.
>
> http://pankajoudhia.com/newwork.html
>
> regards
>
> Pankaj Oudhia
>
>
>
> On Thu, Aug 19, 2010 at 1:53 AM, Usha Desai <ushande...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Neil
> > nice photographs. One can see the pronotum of the hopper  whch looks like a

> > thorn on the acacia tree...helping it to camouflage[?].

> > and info about buffalo hoppers is interesting..
> > Pankajji
> >  interesting that this liquid is  is used in traditional healing and glad
> > you have documented itHow do the tribal  collect the honeydew?
> > cheers Usha
>

> > On 18 August 2010 16:08, Pankaj Oudhia <pankajoud...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >> Have you ever tasted it Kiran ji? In Traditional Healing it is used as
> >> medicine and I have documented this knowledge.
>
> >> regards
>
> >> Pankaj Oudhia
>
> >> On Wed, Aug 18, 2010 at 3:45 PM, kiran srivastava <srivastava.jo@
> >> gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >>> ...and whilst walking in the forest sometimes one feels minute drops of
> >>> 'rain' which is nothing but honeydew that Dr. Soares talks about!
>
> >>> Cheers,
> >>> Kiran Srivastava
> >>> Mumbai
>

> >>> On Tue, Aug 17, 2010 at 11:22 PM, Neil Soares <drneilsoa...@yahoo.com>wrote:
>
> >>>>  Hi,
>
> >>>>  Thought this might be interesting. Photographed at my farm at Shahapur
> >>>> on Sunday.
>
> >>>>     Young Khair [Acacia catechu] saplings are susceptible to grazing
> >>>> animals. By providing food resources to ants in the form of extrafloral
> >>>> nectaries [near the base of the leaflets] the plant makes it obligatory for
> >>>> the ants to protect them.
>
> >>>>     The Buffalo Tree Hopper [Leptocentrus taurus] sucks sap from the
> >>>> plant and is hence a serious pest. Ideally, the ants should also rid the
> >>>> plant of this pest except for its secret weapon : Honeydew. Their excreta
> >>>> called Honeydew is rich in sugar acids, amino acids, vitamins, alcohol and
> >>>> carbohydrates. It is excreted in the form of tiny liquid droplets. Ants
> >>>> protect these hymenopterans from predators and in return are rewarded with
> >>>> honeydew.
>
> >>>>     The Common Godzilla Ant [Camponotus compressus] uses its antennae
> >>>> to tap the body of the treehopper to induce it to release honeydew.
>
> >>>>  Sending a few photographs.
>
> >>>>                             With regards,
>
> >>>>                               Neil Soares.
>
>
>

>  360.gif
> < 1KViewDownload- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

[nabha meghani]

I think these "raindrops" are collected by honeybees too.  The main ingrediants of Waldhonig honey from the forest are these drops and not the nectar from flowers.

Regards

Nalini