06 Friday Dec 2024
Posted in insects
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.
I don’t think this one was very impressed that I was taking photos while they were mating.
10 Thursday Oct 2024
Tags
British bugs, Creeping thistle, insects on Creeping thistle, lacebugs, Spear thistle lacebug, Tingis cardui
My eye was drawn to this particular Creeping thistle by the presence of four Urophora cardui galls on the plant’s stems (for information on what those are, see More galls, part 2, 4 October 2017) and, when I leant down for a closer look, I noticed this tiny creature, my first ever lacebug. (There were also lots of aphids lurking amongst the leaves, as you can see.)
I’m fairly sure I’ve identified this correctly, as the black tips to its antennae are apparently diagnostic, but, for some reason, it’s living on the wrong species of thistle – this is the Spear thistle lacebug (Tingis cardui). I think you can see why it’s called a lacebug – the intricacy of the structure and patterning of its body is really quite exquisite. You can read more about this beautiful bug on the British Bugs website here.
31 Saturday Aug 2024
Posted in insects
“High five!”
The Alder spittlebug (Aphrophora alni) is very similar to the Common froghopper (Philaenus spumarius), and I have a feeling I may have mistaken them in the past, as this was the first time I was certain this was the spittlebug. The British Bugs website explains that ‘The genus can be recognised by the keel running down the midline of the head and pronotum, and the species by the colour pattern with distinct white patches near the margin of the wings’. To my eye, the spittlebug is a noticeably bigger – the froghopper is 5-7mm long, the spittlebug is 9-10mm – and wider in the beam.
08 Monday Jul 2024
Posted in insects
Though I had never seen one of these before, with those flattened parts of its antennae there was no mistaking this little insect. This is Heterotoma planicornis, a tiny member of the Miridae family of plant bugs. It can be found throughout Britain, on various plant species – mine was on the leaf of an Alder tree. The NatureSpot website reports that the eggs hatch in May and the nymphs develop in to adults from June onwards. The tiny bug I found was still a nymph so I guess it will be making its final change fairly soon.
29 Wednesday May 2024
Posted in insects
As I’m stubborn and won’t use apps to help identify the things I find, it took me two and a half weeks to work out what these creatures are and then, truth be told, I only worked it out by using an app, Google lens, once I’d posted some images on Twitter and cried ‘help!’.
I saw the tiny bugs first on this Pendulous sedge on 6 May, lots of them, mostly mating. After that sighting, I tried trawling through the images on the British Bugs website but couldn’t narrow down an identification. My excuse is that I focussed on checking through all the plant bugs, whereas this is actually a member of the Lygaeidae groundbug family.
After seeing these little bugs on the exact same sedge (but not on other sedge plants nearby), still mostly mating, on 23 May, I decided to try again to find their name. And so, thanks to Google lens, I can at last introduce you to Cymus glandicolor, a lover of the damp places where sedges like to grow, mostly in England and Wales, though recently recorded also in Scotland according to the British Bugs website.
07 Monday Aug 2023
Considering how much nettle I see, I’m amazed I’d never seen a Nettle groundbug (Heterogaster urticae) before last Thursday, when I saw heaps, at various stages of growth between egg and adult, all out sunbathing in little groups on nettle leaves. And there are only 114 records in the Welsh database of flora and fauna, which also surprised me.
They’re actually very attractive little bugs, rather hairy, with quite diverse markings in their different instars. The British Bugs website reports that they overwinter as adults so, in theory, we should be able to see them all year round. The website also says that, when they mate, the male and female ‘may remain coupled together for several days’ – nothing like making sure they’ve succeeded, I guess.
Sorry my pics aren’t the sharpest – the bugs were moving around a bit – but I wanted to show as many instars as possible.
12 Monday Jun 2023
Posted in insects
There is a place locally I call the secret field because it has just a couple of quite well-concealed entrances and very few people visit it – in fact, of the many local people I know there’s only one who knows this place. It is surrounded by large mature trees, which means the location is quite sheltered, and the field itself seems to have been planted with saplings perhaps 10-15 years ago, judging by their size. This secret field is where I make many of my most interesting discoveries, and this is one of the most recent.
These are galls on the leaves of Ash trees (upper leaf above, lower leaf below) caused by the larvae of a small bug called Psyllopsis fraxini, also known as the Jumping plant louse according to the Naturespot website, though I’m not sure that’s an official name. There are, apparently, three species of this Psyllopsis bug whose larvae cause galls like these so when recording such finds the aggregate name is used, Psyllopsis fraxini agg. You can read more about these wee beasties and see photos of the adult on the British Bugs website here.
23 Wednesday Nov 2022
This is my favourite time of year for leaf turning, not only because it’s the best time of year to search for leafmines but also because you never know what you might find lurking beneath. In this instance, a rosy red Parent bug (Elasmucha grisea), which overwinters as an adult bug, was hiding away beneath the leaves in a well-vegetated spot.
01 Monday Aug 2022
Posted in insects
I cannot tell a lie – I didn’t find this bug, it found me. As I was wandering around a local field, I glimpsed something flit up from the flowers and looked down to find it sitting on my t-shirt. Very obligingly, it waited until I got my camera out of my pocket and was then persuaded to climb on to my hand for some photos. Meet Stenodema laevigata, another of the Miridae family of plant bugs. This species is much more common and widespread, with over 3000 records currently showing on the NBN Atlas webpage, or perhaps it’s more often recorded because its slim shape and singular markings make it easier to identify.
30 Saturday Jul 2022
Posted in insects
At last a bug with a common name – Adelphocoris lineolatus is also known as the Lucerne bug, though it actually favours quite a wide variety of food plants and, as you can see, I found it sitting on Common fleabane (Pulicaria dysenterica). This species is a little trickier to identify but its combination of paired lines and double spots helped me nail it down. As with yesterday’s mirid bug, records for this species are scattered and mostly to be found in southern Britain, though some adventurous individuals have been recorded in Scotland. (I have not identified the smaller bug in this picture – my photo didn’t show enough details and I suspect it might have fallen into the ‘too hard’ basket anyway.)
earthstar 
You must be logged in to post a comment.