Don't know where to start to find even the family to which it could belong.
I found it in uncultivated land with wild vegetation close to water.
I found some similarity with some of the homoptera cicadas, but its antennae are too long for that. then its antennae are more looking like from a shield bug.
This one looks like a younger version of it. I found it in the close proximity of the previous one.
If you click on the Potato leaf hopper you will see different stages, one looks much like yours. The antennae do look long, but this may be a difference between male and female.
http://www.life.uiuc.edu/entomology/illustrations/homoptera.html
http://mrec.ifas.ufl.edu/Foliage/entomol/ncstate/leafhop1.htm
It does indeed has a lot of similarity with some of the nymph stages of the potato leaf hopper, but I think that the bodies of mine look more rounded, more full. According to these sites the size of the adults is about 3,5 mm, but mine were larger, specially the first one was at least 10 mm, if not even larger.
10mm seems too large for a hopper, but I don't really know how large some can get. The antennae do remind me of a shield bug but I haven't seen one with that body shape, and it looks to have short wings.
The Hawthorn Shield bug nymph has a similar shape but as with all Shield Bugs I have seen the back is typical of those.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acanthosoma_haemorrhoidale
Thank you so much, Walllaby!
Perhaps they're both different stages of nymphs with the first one being the oldest still not fully developped. Strange that the antennae look so similar to the ones of a shield bug with 4 segments, but the body shape doesn't.
The area I found it in is a protected area with mainly bogland vegetation and large floaded areas in the winter where migrating birds from colder regions overwinter with the typical fauna and flora of this type of habitats. The youngest one was sitting on a flower of a Datura stramonium and with the oldest I should have paid more attention to the type of plant it was sitting on, I will check that the next time I happen to go there.
This might stay unresolved.
You're welcome bonitin! The only other thing which comes to mind is a Cricket nymph, there seems to be great variation. I have seen pics of some which don't have the typical grasshopper head.
http://www.plymouth.gov.uk/oakbushcricket
http://aolsearch.aol.co.uk/aol/image?query='cricket%20nymph'&invocationType=imageTab
I found a nymph a couple of days ago which has a grasshopper shaped head, but the wings have a dark diamond shape at the end like Capsid bugs have, so I'm as yet confused too!
Look at some of these strange shapes!
http://www.dpughphoto.com/orthoptera.htm
Take a look at this cricket nymph, the back legs are longer and antennae are longer, but it has a similar shape and those small wings.
http://www.david.element.ukgateway.net/grasshoppersandcrickets14sickle-bearingbushcrickets1.htm
Very interesting!
I've also been thinking about relationship with the cricket world, but then the back legs are not long enough for that and with the cricket species the antennae look like made out of many tiny sections like mini-pearls on a string while mine has 4 large sections.
Very weird shapes indeed specially among the Mole crickets!
Not very aesthetic!
The grasshoppers and cricket family looks like being one of these very difficult ones for ID!
I found a couple more pictures of the same;
The first one is of the oldest in another angle but of poor quality. Anyhow it gives another view on its head:
the second one of the youngest, it has a similar shape of head like with the nymph of the Bush Cricket of the 'dpughphoto site' but doesn't correspond with the rest of its features.
Very confusing families!
