Tag Archives: Miridae

Stenodema laevigata

01 Monday Aug 2022

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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.

220801 Stenodema laevigata

Adelphocoris lineolatus

30 Saturday Jul 2022

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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.)

220730 Adelphocoris lineolatus

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.

220729 oncotylus viridiflavus

Cyllecoris histrionius

21 Tuesday Jun 2022

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It’s National Insect Week here in Britain so I thought I’d share a new bug I found while checking out life on the leaves of Oak trees. And if you think today’s bug looks a bit like last week’s bug, Leptopterna dolabrata, you’d be absolutely right. Meet Cyllecoris histrionius, another member of the Miridae family. This bug species overwinters as an egg, the larvae hatch in the Spring, then the adults are active from May to July. Oak leaves are their usual habitat; there they can be found munching away on aphids and other tiny insects.

220621 Cyllecoris histrionius

Grass bugs

15 Wednesday Jun 2022

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The Miridae family of plant / leaf / grass bugs is huge, with thousands of species worldwide. This one, Leptopterna dolabrata, is a species I often see in the local meadows at this time of year and, during a recent walk, I found a little colony of them, with several adult males and females, mating adults, and nymphs that I have tentatively identified from looking at their colouring as male and female, though I may be wrong about those. So, the photos below are, I think, female nymph (left) and adult (right), male nymph (left) and adult (right), and, most obviously, a male and female mating.

220615 Leptopterna dolabrata

Get a gryp–o!

14 Thursday Jul 2016

Posted by in insects, nature

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A Grypocoris (Lophyromiris) stysi that is – the bug formerly known as Calocoris (Grypocoris) stysi. Though it’s a relatively common bug and can be found throughout Britain, this little dude has no common name so I’ve taken to calling it Grypo – those Latin names are just too long-winded to get my tongue around and not so easy on the memory either.

160714 grypocoris stysi (1)

So, the Grypos are out in force at the moment. Their eggs hatch in May, they eat up large during June and July – mostly on nettles and umbellifers, though the odd snack of aphid also goes down a treat – and by the end of August they’re gone. They’re wee things, between 6 and 8mm long, so not always easy to spot but their distinctive patterning means they are, at least, easy to identify – not the case with many of Britain’s bug community.

Grypo is one of the myriad Miridae family, which includes more than 10,000 species of plant / leaf / grass bugs. As many members of Grypo’s extended family are stem-piercing sap-sucking plant pests, they frequently suffer from bad press. Rest assured, little Grypo is one of the good guys.