Hi iNat,
I was looking for treehopper sounds and went to a site I had bookmarked: https://treehoppers.insectmuseum.org/
It looks like it’s been taken down. I hope the resources were saved somewhere!
-Eric
Hi, Eric, welcome to the iNaturalist forum. :)
I am not sure that site had any relationship to iNaturalist (is there a specific reason you are asking here?) but you might want to connect with some of the hopper experts on iNaturalist itself and they may be able to point you to audio resources. Specifically I am thinking of @nomolosx and @hopperdude215 who have definitely been very generous in sharing their knowledge with me.
I do not know if either is very active on the forum, so connecting on iNaturalist itself is likely the best way to go. (Same user names but otherwise look for top identifiers in hoppers.)
That said, thank you for letting me know tree hoppers made sounds! I had no idea, even though I have observed more than a hundred Membracidae. (One of my favorite things about iNat – I learn something every day.)
Hi [ItsMe]Lucy,
I think I posted this here because I may have learned about that treehopper site from a post on this forum awhile back.
Technically, I don’t think they do make proper sounds. If I understand correctly they cause other things to vibrate and scientists have found a way to make these audible. Here are some examples:
https://soundcloud.com/terranova/treehoppers-vibrating-trees
Thanks for the contacts, I’ll see if they can point me to other sounds.
Thanks Lucy for the links.
On iNaturalist, I DM’d Kyle Kittelberger @hopperdude215 and Solomon Hendrix @nomolosx on Sep 2. It has been a couple of days with no response from Solomon, but Kyle responded right away, so I’ll share his response below:
Adam: Hi Kyle, did you see this thread on the iNat Forum?
I had a look at some treehopper resources on various websites, but I didn’t see anything for searching by sound. Although I’m not even sure how a citizen scientist would get a sound recording. With specialized microphones?
Kyle: Hey Adam, I’m not on the forum, so I’ll reply to you here.
As that thread alludes to, there used to be a website (InsectMuseum) that had links to vibrations of many different genera. I’m not sure why the website no longer works, it was functional a couple years ago I believe. The other link on that forum is one of the other sites I’m aware of that has good audio, that is what I was going to find to share with you.
I’ve never done it, but its a special set up with microphones and I think something similar to a record player needle to convert the vibrations into audio.
I’m also not sure if you can identify taxa to species based on vibrations, I’m sure it’s possible but I have no idea. My impression from when that InsectMuseum site was up and running is that identifying to just genus level was realistically feasible (at least then).
Adam: Would it be okay if I shared your answer on the forum, in order to help others in the future who might have the same question?
Kyle: Yeah, feel free to share. Solomon would likely have a more up to date picture of what is going on, in case you wanted to check with him first (especially since he is studying treehoppers right now).
Why?
The poster had the info and indicated he would be reaching out.
I am very confused by why this was necessary?
(Am I missing something?)
The site stopped being updated in January and recently went dark. Here is the message that was sent out to the treehopper gathering folks by Lew Deitz and Matt Wallace:
“Treehoppers: Aetalionidae, Melizoderidae, and Membracidae (Hemiptera)” Soon to Become an Online, Read-Only, Archival Resource
As of 31 January 2026, our ability to modify the Treehoppers website will be turned off. We will no longer be able to make any changes in the text or to add new data or images. This is necessary because the mx platform used to develop Treehoppers is now out-of-date and has been replaced by TaxonWorks. Thus our bibliographic and nomenclatural data on treehoppers have been incorporated into the World Auchenorrhyncha Database.
In the 1-2 weeks that follow that cutoff, the Treehopper site will go dark, then re-emerge in a read-only state on a new virtual server under a new url. At that time, for your convenience, we hope to provide updated links to the new Treehoppers archival site on two NCSU websites: DrMetcalf [https://www.lib.ncsu.edu/specialcollections/digital/metcalf/\] and the NC State Insect Collection [https://cals.ncsu.edu/entomology-and-plant-pathology/facilities/insect-collection/\]
In the future, users should refer to the World Auchenorrhyncha Database [https://hoppers.speciesfile.org/\] for up-to-date information on treehoppers. Nevertheless, the information, images, and sounds included in the archival version of Treehoppers should remain an invaluable resource for everyone interested in treehoppers.
We sincerely appreciate the dedication of all members for the Treehoppers Team and especially those who helped to prepare or maintain this product as an online resource including Matthew Yoder, Katja C. Seltmann, Andrew R. Deans, Kye S. Hedlund, Shirley L. Rodgers, Mark J. Rothschild, Stuart H. McKamey, Christopher H. Dietrich, Olivia Evangelista, Brendan O. Morris, Dmitry A. Dmitriev, and Brian M. Wiegmann.
- Lewis Deitz and Matthew Wallace
So the site will be available in the future from a different URL, but without updates. I’ll try to remember to post a message here when it’s back online.
The referenced TaxonWorks database: https://hoppers.speciesfile.org