Tube Spittlebug: Bent, Rough Tube

Class:

Animals (Animalia) - Jointed Legs (Arthropoda) - Insects (Insecta)

Order:

True Bugs (Hemiptera)

Family:

Tube Spittlebug (Cercopoidea, Clastopteridae) iNaturalist Observation

Species:

Tube Spittlebug (Machaerotinae sp)

This Photo:

🔍Bent, Rough Tube🔎

General Species Information:
Found on Ellura (in the Murray Mallee, SA) and elsewhere
We discovered these tiny tubes on gum buds and thought they may be some sort of tiny Paper Wasp nests.
We have now found out they are spittlebug houses/shelters/hides.
They are known to feed on gum trees.
There does appear to be two different types - a smooth nest & a rough one. The tubes are made from excretions from the larvae contained inside.
Whether this rough texture indicates a different species or not we don't know.
The rough bent nest was ~13mm long, and you can see a "closed" cell inside. This is actually the posterior end of the larva. It has a protective plate on it's rear end to seal the tube.
The tube contains one larva, similar to a case moth, or psyllid.

This species is

Australian Native Species, not listed in the SA Murray Mallee Survey of 2010.

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