I've been away on a long weekend up on the north west coast of Cumbria. Doing
nothing remotely to do with natural history, just getting some fresh air,
peace and rest. It was a great and much needed break with some superb scenery,
and we managed to avoid the wet weather by heading wherever the rain maps said
it was dry. I'll perhaps post some scenic shots another time.
I'm aware that I've had a number of new moths for the garden that I never
rounded up, but I think I have a few more pending gen
det so will do a fuller round up on those later in the autumn.
The trap was on last night for the first time in a week and it was again
pretty good for Hemiptera. Here's a selection, starting with a few new species for
me ....
Idiocerus herrichi. This one looked quite funky by the trap so I potted
it up for a proper look. Note the banding on costal edge of forewing,
scutellum pattern and funky moustache on the genae.
Lamprotettix nitidulus - another distinctive scutellum pattern, looks
like a sad owl drawn by a child
Orthotylus flavosparsus. Usually has six legs.
The following are also new, though I know they'll need chopping to convince
record verifiers ....
Macrosteles laevis
Ribautiana debilis
These are also from last night ....
Balclutha punctata
Another Ledra aurita
Phytocoris varipes
Stenagostus rhombeus (not Hemipteran ....)
And this is one from the previous trap outing on 4th August ....
Blepharidopterus angulatus
Some may recall
this blog post from 2012, where I reasoned that there was no justification for advocating the 'new'
vernacular names for micros if the book by Sterling/Parsons/Lewington did not
use them. Well the best part of a decade has passed since then. The book was
duly published and made no reference to the vernaculars. A new checklist was
published the following year, again no vernaculars. MapMate still avoids them,
and so does the well-used UK Moths website. A recording guideline for micros
was published by Butterfly Conservation in 2016, and - surprise surprise,
makes no use of the ill-fated vernaculars.
All good then? Well it should be, but for some unfathomable reason there are
people trying to get them in use, with several county moth websites listing
them. Worse still, this bloke is now inviting people to make their own up ....
'Common names' are just that - names that are in widespread, regular common
use. Many insects don't have them at all. Some have them though the usage is
not widespread and regular enough for them to stick, and some have names that
are widely accepted.
The standard argument that everything should have a common name is that it
somehow makes insect recording more accessible and conservation more
achievable. I reckon this is complete bollocks, and I fully expect this latest
venture to be a total failure with experienced moth recorders. The new
recorders of today should be more than capable of learning a name, regardless
of whether it is some English words or not, like the rest of us have done in
previous years/decades. I strongly suspect that those who are unable to
rationale a string of Latin characters are the same people who post a picture
of a Spectacle asking for confirmation that it is a Pebble Prominent.
Still, if new common names are the way to go then Stubbs has missed a trick
here with his new book, which clearly should have been published as British
Leggy Twats. I'm not a fan of this group, and yet feel compelled to get a copy
....
It's been bloody hot so far this week! The factory I work at is hot at the best of times with multiple big industrial ovens, but in post-Covid world (with additional PPE and no air-cons) in addition to the relentless outside temps it's been pretty oppressive. I've been too hot and bothered to nip out and flounce around with net or camera after work, and to be honest sinking a beer and nodding off has been preferable. The overnight trapping has picked up in terms of numbers and variety, but really nothing too exciting other than more Tree-lichen Beauty (four last night).
Here's a load of bugs, hoppers and shieldbugs from Ketton Quarry on Friday, unceremoniously dumped onto a leaf and snapped with flash as quickly as possible. This just about clears a backlog of useable images. None of it is really hot stuff. I lied.
Cicadella viridis
Nabis limbatus - Marsh Damselbug, a new one for me
Early this evening I had a leisurely and relaxing amble around an area of what was wet grassland / marshland which has now been opened up and made accessible as a leisure area with cycle tracks/paths etc. It's also part of a complex associated with the building of the newly located Everards Brewery, and accordingly it's been named Everards Meadows. It's easily big enough to walk away from the flat grassy picnic area, cycle shop and coffee house and find nice open areas with potential. It runs into the Soar Valley and you could easily walk from there onto Aylestone Meadows.
I took a sweep net, but the camera didn't get any use. Although it was reasonably warm and sunny there wasn't a lot flying or active, but the sweep net yielded lots of hemiptera. In particular, I found lots of Damsels, the Nabidae. Having potted them, by the time I'd got home and eaten etc it was too late to try and photograph them properly, so I've had to anaesthetise them, plonk them on card and grab a shot with flash. You get the gist, but they're not pretty to look at and are more like damsels in distress.
Tree Damsel Bug - Himacerus apterus
Broad Damsel Bug - Nabis flavomarginatus
Field Damsel Bug - Nabis ferus
Which Nabis?
I believe it's a nymph, though it superficially resembles Marsh Damsel Bug - Nabis limbatus
And a couple of leggy Miridae, same shape different family:
Miridius quadrivirgatus
This turns up in moth traps a fair bit in VC55, but not sure there are any other 'in the field' records
Phytocoris varipes
The damsel distress didn't stop there either, as on checking whether I'd seen Nabis limbatus before I realised that I had Himacerus apterus listed twice. Arse, -1 for the list.
"I just wanted somebody to caress
This damsel in distress
I just wanted somebody to undress
This damsel in distress
I just wanted somebody to bless
This damsel in distress"
Why on earth that cheesy child puppet was singing about hemiptera I have no idea.
A couple of days ago I received a file with load of VC55 Hemiptera records. I noted that all of the records that I have sent directly to the county recorder have not as yet (and may not ever) filtered through to the overall county dataset. I'm therefore, on a very ad hoc basis, uploading old records onto NatureSpot. I've realised at the start of this that particularly in the late summer of 2013 I had a very rich period of noting bugs and hoppers from moth traps, both at home and when out and about. In particular, I've just rediscovered that I had three different Phytocoris spp. within a week or so, along with a similar looking long-legged bug. Even better, whilst I posted a couple of these on the 1k in 1km blog, none of these records have featured on here. Which is great as I have nowt else to post about today.
First up, the easiest (certainly the least subjective) one to ID ..
Miridus quadrivirgatus - Whetstone 01/08/2013
This is a moth-trap specialist in VC55
Phytocoris varipes - 02/08/2013
The longitudinal markings help to ID this one, but close scrutiny of antennal width/hairs needed
Phytocoris ulmi - Whetstone 22/07/2013
Similar to varipes but more uniformly coloured - again antennal width/hairs key
Phytocoris dimidiatus - Pickworth Great Wood 20/07/2013
This is the most contentious one - the lack of sharply defined black markings on pronotum are key, and the width of pale bands (narrower or equal to dark bands) on mid-tibia separate from similar P. longipennis ... but may not be separable from P. reuteri (which seems to have more south-easterly distribution as far as I can see).
Pseudoloxops coccineus - Whetstone 01/08/2013
Okay, not one of the long-legged ones. I've included this as it's from the same time frame and it looks great. More importantly, as far as I can see there are no earlier/other VC55 records.
Almost a week on, and here's the last batch of bits from the jaunt to Bawdsey last Sunday (at least for now, still one or two bits to try and identify). These were all in the traps in the morning - hence the not very aesthetic egg boxes and plastic trap backgrounds ......
Mottled Grasshopper
Opsius stactogalus - associated with Tamarisk (of which there was loads)
Idiocerus ustulatus - associated with Grey Poplar (of which there was loads)
Probable Idiocerus sp. - haven't managed to resolve this one yet
Phytocoris varipes
Macrotylus horvathi - first recorded in Kent in 2006
