Anointing And Grooming Behavior Of Brochosomes And The Ultra Morphology Of Related Parts Of Body In Typhlocybinae (Hemiptera: Cicadellidae)

The phenomena of covering brochosomes on the body are common in Cicadellidae.The excreted brochosome fluids was firstly placed onto the brochosome-area at the costalmargin of fore wing. The brochosome-area in Typhlocybinae is ubiquitous. At present, tothe best of our knowledge, there are only a few documents about the brochosome,concerned about some related parts such as the brochosome-area and hind leg, and certainrelated behavior in Typhlocybinae. So we analyzed the character of the ultramorphology ofthe brochosome-area as well as hind leg using scanning electron microscopy and recordedthe anointing and grooming behavior in different groups of Typhlocybinae in order toprovide more information for ethology and systematics research.The ultramorphology of the brochosome was analysed in thirty-eight representativespecies of six tribes in Typhlocybinae. No EBS particles were found on the cuticle of thethese species, nor difference in IBS particles between sexes were found.Brochosome-area of forewings and hind legs in thirty representative species of sixtribes in Typhlocybinae were investigated using scanning electron microscopy. The resultsshowed that the brochosome-area have ridges and sensilla，while there were differences inthe visibility of rigdes and density of sensilla among groups. Therefore, three types offorewing’s brochosome-area were divided based on ultramorphology character: the mostobvious type of brochosome-area, intermediate obvious type of brochosome-area, and theobscure type of brochosome-area. The ultramorphology of the brochosome-area mightclosely relate with their habitats. Moreover, we concluded, observing and comparing theultramorphology of the brochosome-area, that the difference of these ultramorphologyprovide some references for identificating species.No obvious difference of hindtibia ultramorphology was found in different species.While the subtle differences in the surface of hindtibia were the type, the density anddistribution of microtrichia. Compared with other groups, the hindtibia of Erythroneurini isfull of microtrichia.The amount of brochosomes covered with the cuticle of body was related to the visibility of the brochosome-area and the density of microtrichia. The more brochosomecovered on body, the more visibility of the brochosome-area and the further density ofmicrotrichia in the surface of hindtibia.Anointing and grooming behaviour of Singapora shinshana (Erythroneurini),Limassolla diospyri (Zyginellini) Empoascanara (Empoascanara) mai (Erythroneurini),Austroasca vittata (Empoascini), were recorded and analysed. Through observation andanalysis of anointing and grooming, we found that the process of anointing and groomingbehavior was similar in different groups, and there was a preparation stage before anointingbehavior in typhlocybines. Meantime, the secreted brochosome amount, repeated severaltimes and interval times of anointing and grooming were different from species to species inTyphlocybinae.