Thistle tortoise beetle larvae

07 Thursday Jul 2022

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British beetles, Cassida rubiginosa, Creeping thistle, faecal shield, insects on Creeping thistle, Larva carrying poo on back, Thistle tortoise beetle, Thistle tortoise beetle larva, weird beetle larva

This is one of the most bizarre things I’ve ever seen. These are the larvae of the Thistle tortoise beetle (Cassida rubiginosa) but, at a quick glance, they look just like little lumps of poo on the leaves of Creeping thistle. And that’s exactly what you can see because these amazing creatures employ a faecal shield as a protective device, carrying their own excretions above their back as a disguise. There are very few local records for this beetle but, as has happened to me before, once I found one – and so knew what to look out for, I then found more in other locations (including a couple of larvae without their shield), so this is another case of something being rarely recorded rather than actually rare.

220707 thistle tortoise beetle larvae

A longhorn

23 Thursday Jun 2022

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British beetles, Cerambycidae, Longhorn beetles, longhorns, Rutpela maculata

As if it knew I was purposefully looking for insects to celebrate National Insect Week, this beetle, my first longhorn of the year, was sunning itself in a hedgerow as I passed by this morning. This is Rutpela maculata (no common name), one of the Cerambycidae and the only longhorn beetle I see regularly in my local area. The black-and-yellow colouration of these beetles varies quite a bit but they always look handsome.

220623 longhorn beetle

Red for danger?

22 Wednesday Jun 2022

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British beetles, Pyrochroa serraticornis, red beetle, Red-headed Cardinal beetle

I was minding my own business, head in a tree as often happens, when one of these crazy little dudes flew into me today. Maybe it thought I was a trunk. It rolled a couple of times in mid air, tumbled, then recovered in time to land on a nettle, scrabbled about, righted itself, then turned and gave me the most indignant look, as if its crazy flying was all my fault. These are Red-headed cardinal beetles (Pyrochroa serraticornis), frequenters of shady woodlands, predators on other insects, occasional menaces of the airways.

220622 red-headed cardinal

Glow-worm larva

02 Thursday Jun 2022

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British beetles, Glow-worm, Glow-worm larva

This was a surprise.

220602 glow-worm larva (1)

I’d just come to the end of a long meandering wander around woodland rides and meadows, finding little in the way of critters to photograph or ponder over, and was heading homewards, stomping up a private road, when I looked down and spotted this bizarre-looking mini-beastie tootling along. It’s a Glow-worm larva and the Wildlife Trusts website has this to say about them: ‘Glow-worms live for up to three years as predatory larvae, living under rocks and hidden deep in grassy tussocks where they mainly feed on snails.’

220602 glow-worm larva (2)

A new beetle

04 Wednesday May 2022

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British beetles, flower beetle, Malachite beetle, Malachius bipustulatus

I thought a shiny green beetle with red ‘buttocks’ would be easy to identify – I should’ve known better. It seems the Malachite beetle (Malachius bipustulatus), named after the bright green mineral its colour resembles, can be mistaken for a similar beetle Cordylepherus viridis, though the thorax and head shapes are a little different. Looking at those features, and checking the Welsh records for both beetles, I’m fairly sure my find is a Malachite beetle but I’ll update this post if I’m proved wrong.

220504 malachite beetle

As busy as a beetle

19 Saturday Mar 2022

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beetle, British beetles, busy as a beetle

An idiom we often use to describe someone who has a lot to do is ‘as busy as a bee’ but have you ever watched a beetle going about its everyday chores? They can be just as busy as bees.

220319 beetle

With over 4000 species of beetle in Britain, it’s almost impossible to identify them with examining their genitals (!), so I haven’t even tried to put a name to this little one. I simply enjoyed watching the sun catch its glimmering carapace as it beetled busily along.

Green tiger beetle

31 Monday May 2021

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Aberbargoed coal tip, Aberbargoed spoil tip, British beetles, Cicindela campestris, Green tiger beetle

Here’s another find from my visit to Aberbargoed, though not from the grasslands. My friend and I also had a good wander around the adjacent spoil tip, a huge reminder of the coal mining industry that used to dominate much of the Welsh Valleys and now home to an amazingly diverse range of flora and fauna.

210531 green tiger beetle

Last week’s walk produced my first ever Green tiger beetle (Cicindela campestris), a species I’ve wanted to see since marvelling at the wonderful photos I saw on Liam Old’s Twitter feed. (Liam is the founder and force behind the Colliery Spoil Biodiversity Initiative, which promotes the environmental value of spoil tips and the immense biodiversity these sites support.)

It’s a beetle

19 Friday Mar 2021

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beetles, British beetles, ground beetle

First, I read that there are around 4000 species of beetle in Britain. But I remained optimistic and figured I might be able to narrow it down by location – it was bumbling along on the ground, so perhaps it was a ground beetle (the Carabidae). Next, I read that there are 374 species of ground beetle. But I continued to be optimistic and thought I might be able to narrow it down by shape or colour. Then, I looked through the gallery of photos on the Coleoptera website and also on the Nature Spot website, and realised that these creatures are a whole lot more difficult to identify than I first thought. So, here’s a beetle, a rather gorgeous beetle with a metallic green sheen, but a beetle none-the-less.

210319 beetle

181/366 Spot the beetle

29 Monday Jun 2020

Posted by sconzani in insects, nature, wildflowers

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beetle, British beetles, Rutpela maculata, Spotted longhorn beetle, umbellifer flowers, umbellifers

This Spotted longhorn (Rutpela maculata) was happily minding its own business, feeding on the umbellifer flowers growing along the edge of a woodland ride, as is its wont, when …

200629 spotted longhorn (1)

Incoming!

200629 spotted longhorn (2)

And so the necessity of life as a beetle takes over, the need to reproduce, to continue the species. Lunch might have to wait.

200629 spotted longhorn (3)

167/377 Leaf eaters

15 Monday Jun 2020

Posted by sconzani in insects, leaves, nature

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beetles on hogweed, British beetles, Celery leaf beetles, leaf beetles, Phaedon tumidulus

I don’t see many beetles, perhaps because I don’t spend enough time looking for them, but I could hardly miss these ones, because there were hundreds of them.

200615 celery leaf beetles (1)

I’m not entirely sure what they are and there are many species of leaf beetle that look very similar but, as these were munching on umbellifer leaves – possibly hogweed (I’m not good at identifying umbellifers either!), I think they might be Celery leaf beetles (Phaedon tumidulus).

As well as munching on the correct type of leaf, these beetles were about the right size (tiny, just 3-4mm), and, although they have lines of dimples on the elytron (the wing covers on the abdomen), they don’t have any on the centre of the pronotum (the thorax), which also fits with Phaedon tumidulus. However, I may have got the ID wrong, so do let me know in the comments box if you can positively identify these hungry creatures.

200615 celery leaf beetles (6)