12 Tuesday Sep 2017
I was checking out a Burdock plant the other day (I rather like their flowers and seed heads, and they have their own special fly) when I suddenly noticed this Green shieldbug and then another one, and another one, and another one …
Turns out there was at least one adult and six nymphs, though more may have been lurking undiscovered. I’m assuming they were all members of the same family, but that is pure surmise.
11 Thursday May 2017
Tags
gorse, gorse flower, Gorse shieldbug, Gorse shieldbug eggs, insect eggs, Piezodorus lituratus, shieldbug
They say ‘Good things come in small packages’ and you couldn’t get much smaller than these tiny packages, the eggs of the Gorse shieldbug (Piezodorus lituratus) sitting on a gorse flower in Lavernock Reserve. I’ll be heading back soon to try to find the hatchlings.
15 Thursday Sep 2016
If you thought your life was complicated, think again.
Though it has just one generation each year, like many bugs Palomena prasina, the Common Green Shieldbug, has a very complex life cycle. Between egg and adult, it goes through five transitional phases (called instars) and at each stage, as it grows into adulthood, it looks a little different, its patterning and colouration varying each time it moults. As its name implies it is mostly green, though it can also have black markings and, as it approaches the time for winter hibernation, the adult shieldbug often changes to a bronze-brown colour.
Such variation can make Palomena prasina difficult to identify and their mostly green hues also act as good camouflage on the plants and bushes they inhabit so, although these bugs are supposedly common and widespread in Britain and at 12-14mm they’re relatively large, I haven’t seen as many as I expected. These are some I did manage to detect.
