Anyways, on Saturday I was poncing around in the garden in a new flouncy light orange T-shirt from M&S preparing for a family BBQ. I'd already noted that the shirt in the sun was apparently attractive to hemiptera, as I'd knocked away a couple of plant hoppers when I noted a small roundish black thing on my left nipple that looked worthy of effort. So I managed to keep it there whilst I dashed in and grabbed the nearest glass tube ..... which had unfortunately previously housed a moth. Once secured and checked under a hand lens, there in all it's generally dull blackness was my first ever Bordered Shieldbug. How's that for luck! It got bunged in the fridge and forgotten about until this evening, when I had no time to try anything but a couple of quick indoor shots with flash. I couldn't even be arsed to grab a leaf, and used a bit of white card - although bizarrely that seems to work okay for this one.
So here it is in all it's tiny moth-scale tarnished and slightly deshevelled glory.
2 comments:
Firstly, welcome back. I hate it when you go all quiet on us. Secondly, many (many) moons back, I dyed my hair a deep blue colour. I loved it, and it was an instant hit with the girls too (up to age about 11, pity their mom's didn't like it too...) Anyway, your blousy light orange shirt (orange being the exact opposite of blue - ask any fashion-conscious lass) and my deep blue hair seem to have the same effect - being highly attractive to insects. In my case wasps, not so cool. Anyway, I feel we've stumbled into something more refined than using mere yellow frisbees on the lawn as pan traps, not sure how we could market it though. Maybe ask me when I'm sober (3rd Wednesday of each month ending in 'Y').
I think the whole thing needs a bit more 'field testing' before we go live .......
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