11 Wednesday Feb 2026
Posted in insects
This is another of my new bug finds from last year, found while leaf-turning wildflowers and scrub along a path in a wild area of a local park. Meet Capsus ater, from the Miridae family of British plant bugs.
I found this little fellow in early June, when the adults first appear; they can be seen from June right through till September. I was lucky to spot it higher up in the vegetation as they usually feed low down on plant stems, according to the British Bugs website.
05 Thursday Feb 2026
Posted in insects
Tags
British bugs, British miridae, British plant bugs, bugs on grasses, grassland bugs, Miridae, Stenotus binotatus
I’ve just realised that I have a few bug finds from last year that I haven’t yet shared, which is actually something of a relief, as I’ve been struggling to find creatures to share with you all (apart from my beloved birds – there are always birds!). So, here is a plant bug Stenotus binotatus, which I found in a local field back in June. The adults can be seen between June and September, and can be found in grasslands, where they feed on the flowers of the grasses that grow there.
10 Tuesday Jun 2025
Tags
British miridae, British plant bugs, bugs on Oak, insects on Oak trees, Miridae, oak tree, plant bug on Oak, Rhabdomiris striatellus
Here’s another bug that I’d never seen before this year and I’ve been lucky enough to find both a nymph and an adult. This is Rhabdomiris striatellus, one of the UK’s 200-plus species of plant bugs in the Miridae family. (I’ve probably only seen about a tenth of them so I’ve got plenty more discoveries yet to make.)
As this bug’s larvae feed on unripe catkins, it is usually found on or around Oak trees, and that’s certainly where I found the adult bug, shown below. The nymph above had probably fallen out of an Oak tree, or had decided to go walkabout to find a neighbouring Oak; I found it on the railings of my local park, where I’ve found so many invertebrates.
Rhabdomiris striatellus overwinters as an egg, hatches out in mid Spring, then passes through a series of instars until it reaches adulthood. The adults can then be seen from May through to July. Those timings certainly fit with my discoveries; I found the nymph on 25 April and the adult, in a different location, on 3 May.
12 Monday May 2025
Posted in insects
Tags
British plant bugs, bugs on Oak, Cyllecoris histrionius, Cyllecoris histrionius adult, Cyllecoris histrionius nymph, Miridae, plant bugs
It’s not often that I manage to find both adult bugs and their nymphs at the same time but, during Saturday’s meander around local fields, I got lucky. These are Cyllecoris histrionius, members of the Miridae family, and they spend their lives on Oak trees. I’ve seen the adult bugs before, just not the young’uns.
There are a few plant bugs whose adults have markings quite similar to this one so care must be taken when identifying them, but it’s not too difficult. They are both carnivores and vegetarians, feeding on insects smaller than they are, like bark flies and aphids, as well as on parts of their host tree.
After laying their eggs, the adults die; they’re usually only seen from May through to July. In the Spring, the eggs hatch, and go through several stages (instars) before reaching adulthood. The gorgeous blue-green nymphs shown above are all final instars.
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