Category Archives: insects

Oncotylus viridiflavus

29 Friday Jul 2022

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High summer is prime time for spotting plant bugs. By keeping an eye out for insects on wildflowers, I’ve managed to spot three new (to me) species in the past week alone. This is one of them: a mirid bug with a mouthful of a name, Oncotylus viridiflavus. A lot of these bugs have very similar markings and can be tricky to tell apart but, luckily, this little guy has quite distinct colouration and patterning and, very helpfully, was sitting right where it should be, on top of its food plant, Knapweed. The records for this species are scattered throughout the southern half of Britain but there are a lot of gaps in the map – perhaps you can be the first to find one in your area.

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Blackberries, yum!

25 Monday Jul 2022

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Yesterday’s first tasting of this season’s blackberries nearly ended in disaster – not for me, but for this teeny weeny Dock bug nymph that was hiding on the far side of a berry but managed to scurry quickly on to my hand before I ate it. The berry was still a bit sour but at least it wasn’t crunchy!
*Note to self: always inspect the berries before eating them.

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Agg is for aggregate

21 Thursday Jul 2022

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Have you ever wondered why the abbreviation ‘agg.’ is used after the scientific names of some flora and fauna? Well, this particular sawfly is a prime example.

‘Agg.’ is short for aggregate and is used where there exists a group of species that are so closely related and difficult to distinguish from each other, that for practical biodiversity recording purposes they are considered one species. As the Nature Spot website explains

The four species within the Tenthredo arcuata complex are problematic to distinguish and the species boundaries are unclear. The complex within Britain and Ireland consists of the species T. arcuata, brevicornis, notha and schaefferi. Unless specimens have been microscopically examined by someone with suitable expertise, we have decided that they should be recorded as part of this aggregate.

So, the scientific name used for this rather cute little sawfly is quite a mouthful: Tenthredo arcuata/brevicornis/notha/schaefferi agg.

220721 Tenthredo arcuata brevicornis agg

Hawkers

16 Saturday Jul 2022

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The latest odonata species to fly on to my 2022 sightings list is the Southern hawker (Aeshna cyanea), a blue-and-green-coloured male patrolling the woodland rides at a local woodland last Sunday 10 July and, yesterday, a brown-and-green female perched on the bramble poking through a mesh fence bordering a local high school. These beautiful beasties fly from June to October and are often seen quite a distance from water, as mine were.

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Dragonflies fascinate me, especially their ‘flying mechanism’, that part of their thorax where the two pairs of wings are attached to their body. My Europe’s Dragonflies field guide describes how ‘Dragonfly wings are remarkably strong and light, but flexible, with a complex highly evolved structure. They are powered by strong muscles in the thorax, with neurons connected directly to the brain.’

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Big butterfly count 2022

15 Friday Jul 2022

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Starting today and running until 7 August, this year’s big butterfly count is underway. The general public – that’s you! – are crucial in assessing the state of the nation’s butterflies by taking part in this annual count. There’s still time to get involved, as you can download the necessary materials from the Butterfly Conservation website, and it only takes 15 minutes of watching and counting the butterflies in your back garden, your local park or green space, then logging those counts online. Easy peasy! And a massive thank you to everyone who takes the time to make a difference!

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Mating hairstreaks

14 Thursday Jul 2022

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Saturday’s walk to my local woodlands started with a magical experience when I spotted these mating hairstreaks sitting, almost hidden, on a leaf of a small sapling. The tree was a young Oak, so I assumed the butterflies were Purple hairstreaks but a closer look showed these were actually White-letter hairstreaks, though there were no Wych elms, their usual habitat, anywhere in sight. The lessons for me were twofold: I should always check rather than make assumptions, and butterflies don’t always do what you expect them to. And, though I felt a little like a voyeur, the butterflies were a joy to see so close, and they stayed quite still while I took this series of photographs.

220714 mating white-letter hairstreaks