Each and every being on Earth is beautiful and unique in its own way, but when you’re talking about odd, fascinating things, insects has to be on top of that list. It’s not even surprising if you think they represent nearly 80% of the world living species. That’s about 900,000 types of insects. And from all of them, there is one that doesn’t look like a bug at all, but rather like a piece of popcorn.
The odd looking creature, known as the Flatid Planthopper Nymph, lives in Ecuador’s Amazonian forests and it is part of the planthopper family. Footage of it went viral when a nature photographer caught the tiny cotton ball during an expedition in the Amazonian forest. The tiny fluffy creature, reassembles a piece of popcorn or a snowflake when moving, and that’s because it’s body is covered by some wax filaments meant to protect it.
A video of the tiny moving cloud was shared online by late biologist and photographer Andreas Kay. Fascinated by the vast variety of insects that live on Earth, Kay spent nearly a decade through the forests of Ecuador documenting about the world’s tiniest creatures.
“This tiny Flatid Planthopper Nymph from the Amazon rainforest of Ecuador is covered with waxy filaments for protection,” he captioned the video. Take a look: