Category Archives: insects

H is for horsefly

13 Friday Dec 2024

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I try to avoid getting close to horseflies as I react quite badly to their bites – in fact, I wear insect repellent for much of the summer to try to keep these little beasties away from me. But, when I got the close up views of A horsefly’s eyes that I blogged about on 14 June, I hadn’t realised the insects were out and about already and was repellent free, so I was doubly lucky – no bites and good photos.

241213 h is for horsefly (1)

I actually enjoyed another close encounter with a horsefly in late June and got the photo shown below. The eyes are very different, and I wonder now if this might have been a male, as it was happily perched on a leaf and didn’t approach me at all.

241213 h is for horsefly (2)

F is for Figwort weevil

11 Wednesday Dec 2024

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Weevils are some of my favourite insects, and the gorgeous Figwort weevil is, I think, the cutest of them all. Once I discovered where they lived in one of my local parks, I made sure to check their Figwort plants every time I went there and, as a result, I have lots of photos of them and have discovered more about their life cycle.

241211 f is for figwort weevil (1)

You might remember that, in June, I brought home a tiny cocoon. I had an idea what it might be but wasn’t entirely sure, and was fascinated to watch the ‘thing’ moving about within its casing as shown in the video on the blog (There’s an alien in my kitchen, 10 June). And then it hatched, my perfect tiny Figwort weevil, and I was over the moon, like a proud parent, and found great joy in returning it to its Figwort plant to live life amongst its family (The hatchling, and family, 12 June). Moments like these are why I spend so much time in Nature.

241211 f is for figwort weevil (2)

E is for eggs

10 Tuesday Dec 2024

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Which came first, the chicken or the egg? An age-old question that I’ll leave you to discuss amongst yourselves. Eggs have featured in several blogs this year: a Coot and her eggs back in May (Coot eggs, 31 May); the spawn of Toads and frogs, 22 February; a lovely moth laying her eggs on grass stems (Pale tussock moth, 7 June); and, another insect, in Shieldbug eggs and hatchlings, 26 July.

241210 e is for EGGS barkfly and ladybird

There have, of course, been lots of other eggs I’ve seen that I haven’t written about, at least not this year. Those shown above are the eggs of a barkfly species, encased in a lovely silken cover, and a little clutch of ladybird eggs. And, below, are the empty egg cases of a Buff-tip moth and the tiny caterpillars that had recently emerged from them.

241210 e is for EGGS buff-tip moth

C is for Cicadellidae

08 Sunday Dec 2024

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What a fabulous year this has been for Cicadellidae, my lovely little leafhopping friends! I may have failed my self-imposed challenge to re-find the species I found ‘new to Wales’ back in 2016 but the search for that elusive leafhopper has led me to find 10 new species, including those shown below and blogged about during the year. Ten may sound like a lot but I’ve still only seen 28 of the c. 300 species of Cicadellidae in Britain and Ireland so I’ve a long way to go yet on my leafhopping journey, which will certainly continue in 2025.

241208 c is for cicadellidae acericerus sp and Populicerus confusus

Of the two species pictured above, the top one was the star in Leafhopper: Acericerus species, 12 September, and the lower one featured in Leafhopper: Populicerus confusus, 7 September.

241208 c is for cicadellidae Eupteryx aurata and kybos sp

Leafhopper: Eupteryx aurata, 19 September, on the left and on the right, Leafhopper: Kybos species, 26 September

241208 c is for cicadellidae rhytidod etcTremulicerus vitreus

And, the two newbies shown above are Leafhopper: Rhytidodus decimusquartus, 24 October at the top, and the lower one is Leafhopper: Tremulicerus vitreus, 6 November.

A is for Alder spittlebug

06 Friday Dec 2024

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Today, scary as it may be that another year has seemingly passed by so quickly, we begin the run-up to 2025! As I’ve done a couple of times before, I’m going to review this year’s finds and posts, based on an alphabetical countdown. And so we begin with the letter A and one of my favourites of this year’s bugs, the Alder spittlebug (Aphrophora alni), which I blogged about on 31 August.

241206 a is for Alder spittlebug (1)

I don’t think this one was very impressed that I was taking photos while they were mating.

241206 a is for Alder spittlebug (2)

Leafhopper: Lindbergina aurovittata

04 Wednesday Dec 2024

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Who would’ve thought that on the second official day of winter (this past Tuesday, 2 December) I would find a new leafhopper? Yet here it is, Lindbergina aurovittata, a species whose adults can be seen between August and November. I guess the mostly mild weather has extended its life cycle a little this year (though some species of leafhopper overwinter as adult bugs, most pass the colder months as eggs or nymphs, according to the website of the Auchenorrhyncha Recording Scheme for Britain & Ireland). I found this particular Lindbergina aurovittata sitting under a leaf on a Bramble hedge along with several other leafhoppers of the Ribautiana tenerrima species.

241204 Lindbergina aurovittata

Leafmines: Stigmella atricapitella

02 Monday Dec 2024

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This is the third of the three new leafminers in ‘green islands’ on fallen Oak leaves that I found during one 30-minute period checking leaves in a local park. These are the work of the moth Stigmella atricapitella, the larvae of which you can see inside the mines shown below.

241202 Stigmella atricapitella

This moth breeds twice each year, so the mines can be seen in June – July and again between September and November, though the mines differ slightly each time (see the information on the British Leafminers website). It is possible to confuse these leafmines with those of Stigmella roborella but, fortunately, S. atricapitella has ‘dark prothoracic sclerites’, the dark marks you can see just below the head of the larvae in my images.

Leafmines: Ectoedemia subbimaculella

25 Monday Nov 2024

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This is the second of the three new leafminers I recently found in ‘green islands’ on fallen Oak leaves during half an hour’s fossicking in one of my local parks. And this one, both the adult you can see on the UK Moths website and the mine of its larva, is very similar to the first of the three I blogged about (Leafmines: Ectoedemia heringi, 18 November).

241125 Ectoedemia subbimaculella (1)

Active during October and November, today’s leafmines were created by the larvae of the moth Ectoedemia subbimaculella, and the difference between the mines of the two species is the slit in the lower part of the mine, on the under side of the leaf, of this one. If you want further information and to see additional, better photos, check out the entry on the British Leafminers website.

241125 Ectoedemia subbimaculella (2)

Aphid giving birth

21 Thursday Nov 2024

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Did you know that aphids give birth to live young?

241121 sycamore aphid giving birth

When I was turning over Sycamore leaves one day last week, I noticed this adult Sycamore aphid (Drepanosiphum platanoidis) was in the process of giving birth. As well as the photo, I tried to capture a short video but that didn’t go well. You can just see the baby wiggle its legs before the end of the video, which I had to cut short because the passage of the other tiny creature through the frame caused the camera to lose focus, and the adult aphid scurried away before I could try again.