An aphid species doing a headstand: Butting behavior ofAstegopteryx bambucifoliae (Homoptera: Aphidoidea)

Abstract

Butting behavior of a bamboo horned aphid,Astegopteryx bambucifoliae, is described. A walking aphid becomes an attacker, who butts, with its frontal horns, a stationary aphid inserting the stylets in the plant tissue. An attacker usually butts up a sufferer without clasping it at first, and then clasps the sufferer with the forelegs and butts it. When butted up, the sufferer lowers the attacked side, or it rotates, keeping the stylets in the plant tissue, so as to face toward the attacker. When clasped and butted from the front, the sufferer raises its abdoment at an angle of 30–90°. Often, the sufferer's abdomen is raised at an angle of more than 90°, with the tip bent forward, so that the hindlegs are detached from the plant surface; the sufferer pushes the attacker's head with its back. The butting results in either that the attacker ceases butting and goes away, or that the attacker drives the sufferer away. Having succeeded in driving a sufferer away, the attacker probes, with its rostrum, about the place where the sufferer's mouthparts were located. Thereafter, the attacker usually starts feeding there.