SHAPE OF YOU

Its hefty headgear has garnered this sap-sucker mythical status

- Nick Baker

LANTERN BUG

AMID THE BUSTLING CORNUCOPIA OF tropical life and the metallic flashes of beetles and butterflies, it sat statue still. It hadn't been there the night before as I walked to and from my rainforest lodge. Having only seen pictures or dreary museum specimens, it was my first live encounter with this strange, little-understood icon of the tropics, and nothing could quite prepare me for the real deal.

Fulgora laternaria has many monikers - lantern bug, lanternfly, machaca and alligator bug, to name a few. Mine was perched at head height on a tree trunk, and looking at it for the first time I was reminded of another popular and descriptive name for this insect: the peanutheaded bug. It did look for all the world like a monkey nut with wings, and one that had been generously sprinkled with icing sugar.