Interesting animal I found on the footwalk yesterday during my lunch break near Ritan Park in Beijing. About 40 mm long with beautiful decorative black dot pattern on the pale semitransparent forewings with a sharp warm red shining through from the underlying hindwings. I sent my photo to insect expert Dave Goulson who replied immediately but not being able to give a clue beyond this: Leafhopper in the family of Hemiptera. In Wikipedia I found out that there are more than 12,000 species in this insect family. As I found out it must be someone in the species of Auchenorrhyncha, either Fulgoromorpha or Cicadomorpha.
Cicadas are very noisy during summer. But as autumn arrived yesterday, with strong northwest winds from the dessert (only 13°C at night) I believe that their lifetime is coming to an end. The Chinese are very fond of cicadas as you can see in an Baidu image search on cicadas .
One day later – again on my midday stroll – I found further specimen lying under a black locust tree (Robinia pseudoacacia) – all smaller than my „beast“, all dead, some already tramplet on.
Does anyone reading this article can give more clues on this beast? It would be very much cherished!