With this spell of warm, dry, sunny weather, (make the most of it - it may rain on Tuesday), the insect life has gone a-crayzee in the garden, not to mention the "Virgin" hot air balloon that has lazily drifted over this part of Reading for the last two days. Maybe Richard Branson is in the basket below?
Fetch me my gun!
We seem to have dozens of Harlequin larvae and pupae, plenty of Capsid bugs in the lower paddock, together with a Meadow Plant bug or two, which I'll endeavour to snap soon.
Anna saw that our Green Shield Bug nymph was shedding its skin on the back gate today, so I took a photo.
The Green Shield Bug nymph stages are called INSTARS. I think there are five of them, and at each stage, the instar (x) will shed its skin, and become a larger instar (x+1). Eventually, it will spend about a week as the Fifth Instar (I think the picture I took below is of a newly emerged fifth instar ); shed its skin one final time as a nymph, and form a fully-winged adult.
I hope ours sticks around so I can see that process happening...
More of my Green Shield Bug photos and description HERE. (April 17th 2007 onwards).
NB. (Later).
Our Green Shield Bug Nymph (5th Instar?) has decided to crawl back into, or at least under its skin which it shed today. I assume it wants some shelter for the night, maybe some form of protection from any predators, or maybe simply it just misses its old self, and is not ready to grow up just yet!
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