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Tuesday, April 17, 2007

GREEN SHIELD BUG

Its "bug central" out in our garden today. I was sitting in the sun, eating a salad, watching the Mining Bees, when a large Green Shield Bug flew straight into my thumb at speed, causing me to throw my fork onto the earth below. After swearing and going inside to wash the fork, I hunted down the wee beastie which had disturbed my lunch. Found it quickly. This little fecker is our only native, common (bright) green shield bug, (although it does darken as the summer progresses, and is more of a bronze colour by the autumn). All true Shield Bugs have 4 segmented antennae, (the Dock Leaf Bug has 5 segments to its antennae, therefore excluding it from the true Shield Bugs).
The Dock Leaf Bug mentioned earlier on "Blue-Grey" was out and about too, sunbathing on top of the slate roof of the bird box!
Very common nationwide (including Scotland this time), the Green Shield Bug flies very noisily and feeds on pretty well anything. But not my salad. Oh no.


NB. 29/05/07 Found a Green Shieldbug NYMPH on our potato plants today. Photo below.








NB. 18/09/07. I have just uploaded another photo of a Green Shieldbug Nymph, which I snapped on my safari around the "Lower Paddock" this morning. This one isn't far away from becoming an adult. Its quite large, and this, along with the fact that the rear of the nymph is green, not white, will distinguish it from the much smaller, Pied Shieldbug.



NB. 6/10/07 Another - found today by Anna on the back gate of the garden...

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