Eurybrachidae

See text Eurybrachidae (sometimes misspelled "Eurybrachyidae" or "Eurybrachiidae") is a small family of planthoppers with species occurring in parts of Asia, Australia and Africa.

They are moderate-sized insects, generally 1 to 3 cm long when mature, but they are unobtrusive and camouflaged with brown, grey or green blotches, mimicking foliage, bark or lichens.

[1] Their mottled camouflage patterns are most intense on the large forewings of many species, hiding the broad and often aposematically colourful abdomen.

Other genera, including many African, Asian, and Australasian species, have closely analogous habits, but the automimicry occurs in the wingless nymphs instead of the winged adults.

When the nymphs with the posterior pseudo-antennae are disturbed they wave them and walk backwards towards the threat in much the same way as the adults of Asiatic species that have filaments on their wingtips.

However, not all species are equipped for that characteristic automimicry; in some genera, such as Eurybrachys, whether this genus is correctly taxonomically assigned or otherwise, the nymphs bear caudal tufts of bristles such as one typically finds in other families of the Fulgoroidea.

Lateral view of a nymph of an unidentified species of Eurybrachidae from Botswana , showing the antennae-mimicking filaments on the abdomen
Dorsal view of a eurybrachid nymph with antennae-mimicking filaments on the abdomen