{{Short description|Species of true bug}} {{More citations needed|date=November 2025}} {{Speciesbox | image = Spittle bug (Ptyelus grossus).jpg | image2 = Ptyelus grossus04.jpg | image_caption = | genus = Ptyelus | species = grossus | authority = (Fabricius, 1781) }}
'''''Ptyelus grossus''''' is an Auchenorrhynchan spittlebug in the family Aphrophoridae. Occurring from Southern Africa through to West Africa, the species is gregarious in its larval and nymph stages, feeding on a variety of plants, and producing protective shelters of acrid foam from their host plant's sap. Excreted in large quantities, the foam drips incessantly causing wet patches on the soil below.
Adults have slate-grey wings, each wing with two white and yellow patches near the outer margin. The head is white, rounded with large dark eyes and small black and yellow marks on the forehead.
Favoured trees are ''Tipuana'', ''Peltophorum'' and ''Lonchocarpus'', although its catholic diet includes species of ''Grevillea'', ''Rhus'', ''Acacia'', ''Vangueria'' and even ''Eucalyptus''. {{citation needed|date=November 2025}}
Nymphs are preyed upon by the gorytine wasp ''Gorytes natalensis'',<ref name="c761">{{cite journal | last=Callan | first=E. McC. | title=Nesting Behavior and Prey of Argogorytes Ashmead (Hymenoptera: Sphecidae) | journal=Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences | publisher=Washington Academy of Sciences | volume=70 | issue=4 | year=1980 | issn=0043-0439 | jstor=24537234 | pages=160–165 | url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/24537234 | access-date=2025-11-05}}</ref> the drosophilid fly ''Leucophenga''<ref name="h680">{{cite journal | last1=Thompson | first1=Vinton | last2=Mohd-Saleh | first2=Norhashimah | title=Spittle Maggots: Studies on Cladochaeta Fly Larvae Living in Association with Clastoptera Spittlebug Nymphs | journal=The American Midland Naturalist | publisher=University of Notre Dame | volume=134 | issue=2 | year=1995 | issn=0003-0031 | jstor=2426292 | pages=215–225 | url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/2426292 | access-date=2025-11-05}}</ref> and other carnivorous insects.
==Gallery== {{Commons category}} <gallery mode=packed heights=300> Spittlebug02.jpg|{{center|Foam nest}} Spittlebug01.jpg|{{center|Nymphs}} </gallery>
==References== {{Reflist}}
{{Taxonbar|from=Q7257173}}
Category:Aphrophoridae Category:Insects of Africa Category:Insects described in 1781
{{Auchenorrhyncha-stub}}