Shieldbugs. (1 Viewer)

[Stuart Read]

Hi Harry

I have been beating birch, plenty of Birch Shieldbugs but as yet no Parent Bugs, although i did find a dead one caught in a spider web in the spring.

Stuart.

 

[harry eales]

Hi Harry

I have been beating birch, plenty of Birch Shieldbugs but as yet no Parent Bugs, although i did find a dead one caught in a spider web in the spring.

Stuart.

Hello Stuart,
I cannot understand why the Parent Bug should be so scarce in your area, it is a very common species in the south of England and common in the north. It's a tad early for them to have gone into hibernation, especially down south, their still out and about up here.

Try widening your recording area a bit, that may help. I see from Roger Hawkins book on the Shieldbugs of Surrey, that peaks of adults were recorded in the first week in August and the second week in September, but adults were recorded every week of the year from April to late October. Final instar nymphs being recorded until the end of September. If you have Alder in your area, give that a thrash as well. Don't give up.

Good luck.

Harry

 

[matt green]

'bloomin ek' i'm going to print off this whole thread,bind it and i'll have me a free reference work on british and continental shieldbugs lol,one of the best threads i've seen on bf yet.i feel these threads make a real contribution to scientific knowledge and ad to the pleasure of beginners alike,i'm sure it will continue.matt

 

[harry eales]

'bloomin ek' i'm going to print off this whole thread,bind it and i'll have me a free reference work on british and continental shieldbugs lol,one of the best threads i've seen on bf yet.i feel these threads make a real contribution to scientific knowledge and ad to the pleasure of beginners alike,i'm sure it will continue.matt

Hello Matt,
Glad you enjoyed it. The first few posts are slightly out of sequence as they were culled from odd requests for ID that appeared over a couple of months, before being amalgamated. It's probably the longest individual thread of BF now, but it does come in useful for members now and then.

Feel free to post any pictures you may take of Shieldbugs if your unsure of their identity. Not all the British Shieldbugs are represented yet, but certainly the majority of the species you are likely to encounter are present. (somewhere in here) lol.

Harry

 

[138mph]

Some Spanish examples:

Found 14th and 15th October 2005 in South Eastern Spain.
A set of striped shieldbugs that I think are Graphosoma sp., a set of nymphs that I suspect are the same, a single nymph that probably isn't; and another set, one of which looks like a shieldbug bug but I think is a Lygaeus sp., and adult and nymph that look like Pyrrhocoridae rather than shield bugs.

I suspect the single nymph (3rd image) is Carpocoris mediterraneus.
and in the last image the final two creatures are Pistachio Red Bug, Lygaeus pandurus adult and nymph and I suspect the first of the three is nymph of Pyrrhocoris apterus.

 

[Leo S]

Wow! I'm glad to have found this thread and so much interest in shieldbugs... was beginning to think I was the only one!

I have been trying to photograph them for a few years now and even have a small section on my homepage dedicated to them which you may find interesting and can be found here:

http://www.btinternet.com/~l.stachowicz/pics/sb.htm

Please note that there are also pics of at least a couple of species which I found while staying on the Island of Gran Canaria.

Thanks to your thread I now know that the species I have are Eysarcoris fabricii and the Green Shieldbug Palomena prasina... is that right?

By the way, the Eysarcoris fabricii seems to like the wild strawberries we have here, and a rather hairy plant which is related to the nettle family I think. Perhaps someone can ID it from my pics?

I've also found it on wild rose as well as an ornamental grass, raspberries, and those fire-orange colored invasive iris(I think... or illy perhaps) which I've seen allot of in the hedge rows and countryside in the S/W UK, but not as often as I have seen it on the first two plants I mentioned, which it seems are it's preferences for congregating on(in my garden at least).

Here's a relatively recent pic of some Greens mating, if I'm allowed to post another today...

 

[Leo S]

Hello Graham,
It's the Forest Shieldbug Pentatoma rufipes. What it's doing in a bin is anyones guess. It is a common species throughout Britain, usually associated with trees as its common name suggests, but it is also common in gardens and hedgerows.

Harry.

Bins must be a good place to look for Shieldbugs as I too have found evidence of them there... in the form of eggs which I successfully managed to hatch out(follow the link in my post above) after careful removal of a small patch of bin liner !! :bounce:

 

[harry eales]

Found 14th and 15th October 2005 in South Eastern Spain.
A set of striped shieldbugs that I think are Graphosoma sp., a set of nymphs that I suspect are the same, a single nymph that probably isn't; and another set, one of which looks like a shieldbug bug but I think is a Lygaeus sp., and adult and nymph that look like Pyrrhocoridae rather than shield bugs.

Hello Hugh,

I think your correct in you identifications, but I've little experience with European species and my German ID book isn't much help. Nymphs can be difficult at the best of times. It may be a case of you searching the web for sites on the identification of Spanish species, if there are any.

Sorry I can't be more help,

Harry

 

[harry eales]

Wow! I'm glad to have found this thread and so much interest in shieldbugs... was beginning to think I was the only one!

I have been trying to photograph them for a few years now and even have a small section on my homepage dedicated to them which you may find interesting and can be found here:

http://www.btinternet.com/~l.stachowicz/pics/sb.htm

Please note that there are also pics of at least a couple of species which I found while staying on the Island of Gran Canaria.

Thanks to your thread I now know that the species I have are Eysarcoris fabricii and the Green Shieldbug Palomena prasina... is that right?

By the way, the Eysarcoris fabricii seems to like the wild strawberries we have here, and a rather hairy plant which is related to the nettle family I think. Perhaps someone can ID it from my pics?

I've also found it on wild rose as well as an ornamental grass, raspberries, and those fire-orange colored invasive iris(I think... or illy perhaps) which I've seen allot of in the hedge rows and countryside in the S/W UK, but not as often as I have seen it on the first two plants I mentioned, which it seems are it's preferences for congregating on(in my garden at least).

Here's a relatively recent pic of some Greens mating, if I'm allowed to post another today...

Hello Leo,

Welcome to the Entomological Section of Bird Forum. Your correct in your assumption there are only a few people interested in Hemiptera. My own interest is confined mainly to the British Shieldbugs. You will find a lot of the posts in this 'Stichy Thread are requests for ID's but it is nice to see more people noticing these interesting species, photographing them and asking for help in identification, hopefully this will lead to some of them taking more interest in them.

A nice start to your Shieldbug webpage, if I could be permitted to make a suggestion, the background colour is a little dark, I had to 'block' the text in order to read it. A lighter background shade would make reading the text much easier.

There are no limits to how many posts you can make in a day, but there is a limit on how many pictures can be attached to an individual post. If you try to upload more than the maximum, you will receive a warning that you have exceeded the maximum. In such a case, remove the last picture, upload those it will accept, then simply make a further new post with more pictures attached to that.

Harry

 

[steve covey]

Wow! I'm glad to have found this thread and so much interest in shieldbugs... was beginning to think I was the only one!

I have been trying to photograph them for a few years now and even have a small section on my homepage dedicated to them which you may find interesting and can be found here:

http://www.btinternet.com/~l.stachowicz/pics/sb.htm

Please note that there are also pics of at least a couple of species which I found while staying on the Island of Gran Canaria.

Thanks to your thread I now know that the species I have are Eysarcoris fabricii and the Green Shieldbug Palomena prasina... is that right?

By the way, the Eysarcoris fabricii seems to like the wild strawberries we have here, and a rather hairy plant which is related to the nettle family I think. Perhaps someone can ID it from my pics?

I've also found it on wild rose as well as an ornamental grass, raspberries, and those fire-orange colored invasive iris(I think... or illy perhaps) which I've seen allot of in the hedge rows and countryside in the S/W UK, but not as often as I have seen it on the first two plants I mentioned, which it seems are it's preferences for congregating on(in my garden at least).

Here's a relatively recent pic of some Greens mating, if I'm allowed to post another today...

Hi Leo and welcome to the 'sticky' :hi:
As Harry says, nice start to your shieldbug page. I particularly like the Canaries Bug - no idea which species it is though. Maybe an email sent to the Natural History Museum with the pic might get you an answer; or point you in the right direction for references.
The fire-orange invasive plant you refer to is [an educated guess] Montbretia [Crocosmia x crocosmiflora]. It's naturalised all along the Atlantic seaboard.
The plant your E. fabricii are associating with is Woundwort - hence the vernacular name of Woundwort Shieldbug [although how recently that name has been adopted I wouldn't like to say].
Your observations of it feeding on the other plants are interesting as in Roger Hawkins book 'Shieldbugs of Surrey' [the only text/guide I have] none of those other plants are mentioned. He lists: white deadnettle, nettle, black horehound, creeping buttercup and the fruits of hogweed and red bartsia. So it's obviously not fussy although having a preference for woundwort.
Cheers,
Steve.

 

[paul mabbott]

Graphosoma

The Graphosoma seems to be G. semipunctatum because of the broken stripes on the pronotum. The yellow one seems to have the same pattern &c but does this have a yellow form? Is it perhaps immature?
Paul M

Found 14th and 15th October 2005 in South Eastern Spain.
A set of striped shieldbugs that I think are Graphosoma sp., a set of nymphs that I suspect are the same, a single nymph that probably isn't; and another set, one of which looks like a shieldbug bug but I think is a Lygaeus sp., and adult and nymph that look like Pyrrhocoridae rather than shield bugs.

 

[steve covey]

The Graphosoma seems to be G. semipunctatum because of the broken stripes on the pronotum. The yellow one seems to have the same pattern &c but does this have a yellow form? Is it perhaps immature?
Paul M

Hi Paul, [nice to see you here by the way].
A look on various continental sites shows a few pics of yellow ones with no indication they are a separate form/subspecies etc. I assume they are as you say freshly emerged adults. I found a large colony earlier this year in Kefalonia. They were all feeding on Sea Holly at the edge of a coastal dune system. They were all red/black and there was a lot of mating activity going on. Not conclusive evidence I know, but useful as a working hypothesis unless or untill anyone comes back with something different.
Cheers,
Steve.

 

[paul mabbott]

Graphosoma

[Yes, it's amazing who you meet!]
The two common Graphosoma spp are common all the way around the Med but, as you note, G. semipunctatum is almost always on dunes; whereas G. italica is more inland on lusher vegetation. I have *never* seen yellow ones of either species ... perhaps I have always looked at the wrong time of year?
Cheers, Paul
PS: has anyone seen this in NW Europe yet?

Hi Paul, [nice to see you here by the way].
A look on various continental sites shows a few pics of yellow ones with no indication they are a separate form/subspecies etc. I assume they are as you say freshly emerged adults. I found a large colony earlier this year in Kefalonia. They were all feeding on Sea Holly at the edge of a coastal dune system. They were all red/black and there was a lot of mating activity going on. Not conclusive evidence I know, but useful as a working hypothesis unless or untill anyone comes back with something different.
Cheers,
Steve.

 

[Leo S]

Hello Leo,

Welcome to the Entomological Section of Bird Forum. Your correct in your assumption there are only a few people interested in Hemiptera. My own interest is confined mainly to the British Shieldbugs. You will find a lot of the posts in this 'Stichy Thread are requests for ID's but it is nice to see more people noticing these interesting species, photographing them and asking for help in identification, hopefully this will lead to some of them taking more interest in them.

A nice start to your Shieldbug webpage, if I could be permitted to make a suggestion, the background colour is a little dark, I had to 'block' the text in order to read it. A lighter background shade would make reading the text much easier.

There are no limits to how many posts you can make in a day, but there is a limit on how many pictures can be attached to an individual post. If you try to upload more than the maximum, you will receive a warning that you have exceeded the maximum. In such a case, remove the last picture, upload those it will accept, then simply make a further new post with more pictures attached to that.

Harry

Thanks Harry,

I appreciate your feedback and the tips for posting pics. My whole web page really needs a complete overall, and I've not had a chance to get round to it yet, but I will eventually! I'll make sure its a little easier on the eyes this time.

Leo

 

[Leo S]

Hi Leo and welcome to the 'sticky' :hi:
As Harry says, nice start to your shieldbug page. I particularly like the Canaries Bug - no idea which species it is though. Maybe an email sent to the Natural History Museum with the pic might get you an answer; or point you in the right direction for references.
The fire-orange invasive plant you refer to is [an educated guess] Montbretia [Crocosmia x crocosmiflora]. It's naturalised all along the Atlantic seaboard.
The plant your E. fabricii are associating with is Woundwort - hence the vernacular name of Woundwort Shieldbug [although how recently that name has been adopted I wouldn't like to say].
Your observations of it feeding on the other plants are interesting as in Roger Hawkins book 'Shieldbugs of Surrey' [the only text/guide I have] none of those other plants are mentioned. He lists: white deadnettle, nettle, black horehound, creeping buttercup and the fruits of hogweed and red bartsia. So it's obviously not fussy although having a preference for woundwort.
Cheers,
Steve.

Hi Steve,

Thanks - yes there are some very interesting species in the Canaries... I plan to go back and look for more, especially one almost completely white species which I found living right at the top of the Island(4500 feet altitude IIRC) on the similar colored heather like plants on the slopes there as all my attempts to get a photo last time were foiled by fading light and the extreme skittishness of this particular species!

The Crocosmia was indeed the plant I was thinking of(I have a bad memory for names!), and thanks for also clearing up the Woundwort. TBH I can't say for sure if they were feeding off all the plants I listed... and I'm not 100% sure I have not mixed up the instars of the 2 species we have here. I will make sure I get a better look when I go hunting for them next season!

Leo

 

[steve covey]

Hi Steve,

Thanks - yes there are some very interesting species in the Canaries... I plan to go back and look for more, especially one almost completely white species which I found living right at the top of the Island(4500 feet altitude IIRC) on the similar colored heather like plants on the slopes there as all my attempts to get a photo last time were foiled by fading light and the extreme skittishness of this particular species!

The Crocosmia was indeed the plant I was thinking of(I have a bad memory for names!), and thanks for also clearing up the Woundwort. TBH I can't say for sure if they were feeding off all the plants I listed... and I'm not 100% sure I have not mixed up the instars of the 2 species we have here. I will make sure I get a better look when I go hunting for them next season!

Leo

Hi Leo,
not visited the Canaries myself yet - they're on the list though. A couple of interesting dragonflies there too [my main interest].
The last pic you posted is of a 2nd instar Green Shieldbug nymph on strawberry.
Cheers,
Steve.

 

[138mph]

Two more for confirmation

I am a bit uncertain of my identification of these two found today 2005-10-30 in Bedfordshire (along with a Birch Shield Bug). Sorry about the picture quality, it was somewhat dark and windy making things difficult.

Thanks in advance
Hugh

 

[harry eales]

I am a bit uncertain of my identification of these two found today 2005-10-30 in Bedfordshire (along with a Birch Shield Bug). Sorry about the picture quality, it was somewhat dark and windy making things difficult.

Thanks in advance
Hugh

Hello Hugh,

Your first picture is as you said a Birch Shieldbug, the second picture is of a Green Shieldbug.

Harry

 

[138mph]

Hello Hugh,

Your first picture is as you said a Birch Shieldbug, the second picture is of a Green Shieldbug.

Harry

Thanks;
I didn't mean that I thought the first was a Birch SB, in fact I am surprised as it doesn't look at all like one to me. The second I queried because of the leg colour.
Hugh

 

[harry eales]

Thanks;
I didn't mean that I thought the first was a Birch SB, in fact I am surprised as it doesn't look at all like one to me. The second I queried because of the leg colour.
Hugh

Hello Hugh,

Sorry, I seem to have had a 'Senior Moment' when typing my last reply to you. It's not a Birch Shieldbug but a Parent Bug in picture 1.

I wouldn't worry too much about odd colours appearing on specimens found in Autumn, Winter or Spring. Most species that overwinter as adults do alter their colours considerably to avoid detection from predators during the months there are no leaves on the trees or bushes, and temperatures are low.

Harry