Family: Cicadellidae
Subfamily: Gyponina
Length: 9.0-10.0 mm
The adult Ponana rubida shown here was photographed in Upshur County early in June in a mature forest.
Professor K.G. Andrew Hamilton smilingly commented upon seeing this photo, "You have just answered one of the mysteries of leafhopper taxonomy - why this insect bears the name "rubida" (reddish) when every specimen in a collection is always tan-colored. Apparently they lose the reddish color when dead." Indeed, the published descriptions such as the one in Beirne (1956) are pretty drab: Beirne calls the species "brownish-yellow."
An aggressive collecting program in 45 West Virginia counties in 1978 and 1979, conducted by J.W. Begley and L. Butler, turned up these Ponana species:
