Here's the critter...
See why I called it a fuzzy-butt? It was well after dark when we arrived at the Bella Vista lodge deep in the Andean cloud forest, and after a late supper most of our group headed off to bed. Tom and I on the other hand were entranced by the amazing diversity of moths and beetles attracted to the lights along the paths. At first I took these large fluffy-tailed insects to be a type of moth, but I began to have doubts when one landed on me and I realized its wings were rather hard and un-moth-like. The clincher came when I examined the underside and saw that it had distinctly beak-like mouthparts.
Could it be a true bug? It sure didn't look like any bug I'd ever seen! Finally my entomology training began to come back to me, and I remembered that the tropics have some strange groups of Homopterans that aren't commonly found in North America. Sure enough, when I had the chance to do a little research, I discovered that our Fuzzy-butt is a kind of Fulgorid planthopper -- a member of the group that includes the peanut bug and lanternflies. The family Fulgoridae is well-represented in the tropics, and contains some really spectacular large plant-sucking bugs, many of which have gigantic strangely-shaped projections on their heads. An erroneous early report held that the projection of one species was a light-producing organ, hence the name "lanternfly."
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