A close up of a recently emerged forest shieldbug, Pentatoma rufipes, showing all its metallic shinyness.

This is not the common name of this large shield bug, Pentatoma rufipes, which actually goes by Forest or Red-legged Shieldbug, but it should be. I found the individual above todaty on a pavement today and had a plastic pot at hand to bring it home and give it the white bowl treatment to bring out its colours. This shiny, metallic beauty becomes an adult at the end of June or July, as the photo below of a teneral adult, just moulted out of its also shiny last instar nymph skin shows. Even when the full colours are not evident, the prominent 'shoulders' are characteristic.

Large shieldbugs are relatively easy to identify, even at their nymphal stages. The British Bugs site is always good starting point.

Dead heading is one of the rules of gardening, isn't it? You are told to remove the faded flowers so that seeds don't form, as they extract lots of energy from the plant. But what will you miss? you want to look at seedheads. In a walk around my local wildlife garden I found that meadow cranesbill's seedheads were busy with shieldbugs of several species, feeding on them. Among the bugs there were some striking black and red ones (above), which I had never seen before, they were very flighty and the light conditions were not right, but I managed some shots. Upon looking into the British Bugs site I identified them as Corizus hyoscyami a species that during the last decade has expanded throughout England from a few coastal locations in Wales, another species that, according to the NBN gateway, wasn't known to have crossed the Humber before.


I must remember to leave my geranium seedheads for next year, as true bugs (hemiptera) are one of my favourite insects. One job less to do, and plenty of opportunities to enjoy bugs.

I realised a few days ago that I have not posted much about bugs (Hemiptera) in BugBlog. To start making amends, here comes a short one on a common bug these days, the forest bug Pentatoma rufipes, a quite large, showy shield bug easily to recognise for its spiky lateral thorax projections and orange legs. There are quite a few bug species about, many still nymphs, but an adult forest bug landed on my shoulder yesterday. Forest bugs lay their eggs on bark of oaks and other trees around this time of year and the nymphs hibernate on the trees. The adults are partly predatory. For lots of information and beautiful photos of British bugs here.