Leafhopper Arthaldeus pascuellus

Description

Arthaldeus pascuellus, one of the leafhopper species living in the Urban Meadow at National Museum Cardiff. Here at the Museum we have first-hand evidence that our Meadow has helped attract wildlife. One of our Museum scientists, Dr Mike Wilson, is a specialist in a group of insects called leafhoppers and planthoppers. In September 2014, Dr Mike counted how many planthoppers and leafhoppers he could find in a 1m2 area of the Meadow and a 1m2 area of the mown grass next to it. He collected the hoppers using an instrument called a suction-sampler, which sucks the insects up into a net. He identified all the hoppers he found so he knew how many species there were. He found about 150 specimens in the Meadow, but only about 10 specimens in the grass next to the Meadow. He identified six different species of hopper in the Meadow and only two different species on the mown grass. This means that there were 15 times as many hoppers, and 3 times as many hopper species, in the Meadow compared with the mown grass. He multiplied his findings by the size of the Meadow and calculated that there could be as many as 29,000 hoppers living in our Meadow! This item is part of the Urban Meadow Teaching Resource for Foundation and Key Stage 2.https://www.peoplescollection.wales/learn/urban-meadow