irrupt

一か月程前だと思いますが、NHKのドキュメンタリー番組で南米のツノゼミを知りました。そのツノゼミ（"treehopper"）が今読んでいるThe Creationに出てきました。
A lone sunlower grew on the barren surface of the open space. It was swarming with small dark brown ants. Huddled in the axils of its leaves were families of treehoppers, strange distant relatives of aphids with shark fin spines that protruded from their backs. When I pulled the leaves apart to collect specimens, the ants swarmed over my hands, biting and stinging them. Each sting burned like a match held too close, and most raised a small welt that itched for hours afterward. It was obvious that the ants were protecting the treehoppers.
...
Around 1518, a plague of ants irrupted at the fledging Spanish colony on Hispaniola.
和名はツノゼミですが、蝉とは全く似ていません。上の引用文にあるように "aphid"（アリマキ、アブラムシ） の遠い親戚と言われた方が納得できます。ところで覚えたい単語は "irrupted" です。 "irrupt" を辞書で調べます。
・Oxford English Dictionary: (Of a bird or other animal) migrate into an area in abnormally large numbers.: ‘But climate change, restoration, biotechnology, and irrupting species have forced ecologists to consider what was, in order to imagine what ought to be.’
・WordNet: increase rapidly and in an uncontrolled manner ("The island's rodent population irrupted")
"treehopper" 様々な形の種類があり、その中でも "brazilian treehopper" は特にユニークでその形も色々と異なる仲間がいます。