The head of some species is produced into a hollow process, resembling a snout, which is sometimes inflated and nearly as large as the body of the insect, sometimes elongated, narrow and apically upturned.

It was believed, mainly on the authority of Maria Sibylla Merian, that this process, the so-called lantern, was luminous at night in the living insect.

Carl Linnaeus adopted the statement without question and coined a number of specific names, such as laternaria, phosphorea and candelaria to illustrate the supposed fact, and thus propagated the myth.

Metcalf in 1938,[1] as amended in 1947,[2] recognized five subfamilies (Amyclinae, Aphaeninae, Fulgorinae, Phenacinae, and Poiocerinae) and twelve tribes in the Fulgoridae.

By 1963 Lallemand had divided the Fulgoridae into eight subfamilies (Amyclinae, Aphaeninae, Enchophorinae, Fulgorinae, Phenacinae, Poiocerinae, Xosopharinae and Zanninae) and eleven tribes.