I've finally managed to crack a couple of hemipteran puzzlers that I've been
mulling over all week. Both were swept and potted at Ketton Quarry on Monday,
and both popped their clogs in respective pots before I could even attempt a
photo. Luckily there were both big enough that they were not going to shrivel
away to nothing in a couple of days. It's not often now that I find a bug and
can't resolve it having gone through the British Bugs galleries, but both of
these stubbornly refused to be identified until I had a lucky moment last
night and a eureka moment this evening.
First up, this dark Mirid with bright red cuneus, bright green underneath and
(although they fell off) longish 'Phytocoris like' hind legs. I could not pick
out anything similar in the British Bugs galleries, then last night whilst
flicking through Facebook I noticed a photo of the exact same bug on the UK
Hemiptera group. Here's a lazy photo of my dead hind-legless bug ....
It's a male Closterotomus trivialis, which currently isn't featured on
the British Bugs gallery. It was added to the British list as recently as
2008, when adults were found on a small number of cultivated Hypericum plants
in a north London garden. They still don't seem to have spread; the NBN atlas
maps is pretty devoid of dots - except there is one for Leics., a 2018 record
from a garden. It must be spreading, and whilst info seems a bit sparse I
wonder if the abundance of native Hypericum spp. at Ketton Quarry is relevant.
Needless to say, it's a new one for me.
The other bug that has been bugging me is this; a smallish, entirely all dark
and quite hairy thing ....
Earlier this evening I had one more trawl through British Bugs and realised
why I was missing it: this is a macropterous form of
Orthocephalus coriaceus, a widespread but local bug of grasslands. No
VC55 dots on the NBN maps, and no previous records as far as I can tell. And
again, new for me.
Great stuff. I seem to be quite lucky lately in that although I'm limiting the
number of specimens collected to check out quite a good percentage of them
have been new for me and significant for VC55.
Here's a few flower buds from the same visit to fill the page a bit ...
Yellow Bird's-nest
Deadly Nightshade
Hedge Woundwort
Bladder Campion
Common Spotted Orchid
And because I can, another Stenurella melanura - Ketton Quarry seems to
be a good site for this longhorn in VC55 .....
