In past posts I've shown some macro shots of shieldbugs. In our front garden, on a solitary sunflower, we had a pair of Common Green Shieldbugs. At the time of discovery, these were at the 5th instar stage - the last before adulthood. I don't know what I was expecting to happen (I guess something akin to pupation before adulthood), but I was quite surprised to find that one day they were 5th instars and the next day they were both adult.
Here's a reminder of what the fifth instar was like:-
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| Common Green Shieldbug (5th instar) - our garden |
- and this is what they looked like the day after they were last seen as a 5th instar:-
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| Common Green Shieldbug (teneral adult) - our garden |
I'm not sure that the transition was complete in the above two images as it rather looks as if the wings are not fully developed and free. Three days later they looked like this:-
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| Common Green Shieldbug (adult) - our garden |
I'd read that these bugs turn darker as winter approaches and they set themselves up for hibernation. This happened, and this image was taken on 24th October. They disappeared shortly afterwards.
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| Common Green Shieldbug (adult prior to hibernation) - our garden |
In September I'd found a teneral Birch Shieldbug down my shirt! Here's a reminder of what it looked like. ed. - Maria has pointed out that my identification of this bug is incorrect (thank you Maria!) - it is, in fact, a teneral Hawthorn Shieldbug. The subsequent image is, however, correctly identified as a Birch Shieldbug.
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On 5th October a mature adult Birch Shieldbug appeared on our conservatory window:-
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| Birch Shieldbug (mature adult) - our garden |
Sorry that this is a poor image, but it was a very dull day. If it had been a brighter day, this next image might have been rather better, but I'll show it anyway as there's probably not too many images anywhere of one of these in flight! I found the colouration and body shape to be surprising.
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| Birch Shieldbug (mature adult) - our garden |
I thought that September was going to be my last month of macro photography, but whilst showing the shieldbugs I might as well include a couple of other images.
The first is of a Drinker Moth caterpillar.
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| Drinker Moth caterpillar - my 'local patch' |
The second is of a Caddisfly (known as a 'sedge' to fishermen) on the car windscreen.
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| Caddisfly - Eyebrook Reservoir |
I'm not expecting any macro images for November - but then I wasn't for October, so who knows!!
