Shield bugs

[Olwen]

Its been great to hear about these bugs. And thanks for the link to Te Henui. Its so enjoyable to nose around among the bugs - good to know there's a lot of us doing it!

[flossiepip]

The orange Shield Bug reappeared today, so took a few more photos though the weather was dull and a bit drizzly. I would say its a male as he was being pulled about during copulation!

_1016758_1.JPG (175.85 KiB) Viewed 5364 times

_1016771_1.JPG (163.03 KiB) Viewed 5364 times

_1016787_1.JPG (119.58 KiB) Viewed 5364 times

_1016787_1.JPG (119.58 KiB) Viewed 5364 times

[Olwen]

Great pictures!

[David Riddell]

Yes, great pictures indeed. Definitely a Nezara if it's copulating with one of those green ones. Looks like he's had a hard life - starting to show his age!

[flossiepip]

We now have a garden full of shield bug nymphs, any idea what the colours for these young bugs should be as ours are all black with a row of white spots all along the edge of the body with two rows of yellow spots from top of body to back and red spots from body to head with two red spots on the head. Legs are black but under body red. Is this the normal colour of the nymph!

[flossiepip]

_1018580_1.JPG (159.16 KiB) Viewed 5218 times

_1018673_1.JPG (179.69 KiB) Viewed 5218 times

[David Riddell]

Nice photos. Yes, the nymphs are very pretty, and highly variable. According to Landcare Research:

First instar nymphs are like small, red and black, wingless adults. There are five nymphal stages, each is called an instar. Nymphs go from one stage to the next by moulting, changing their skin. During moulting, the “skin” on the dorsal side splits and the next stage pulls itself out. As the insects progress through the nymphal stages their body changes colour. The first instar is almost circular in outline. The body is red with black around the abdominal scent gland openings, black areas also on the thorax and a black head, legs and antennae. The second instar is shiny black. The abdomen has a pair of white lateral patches on the first segment and two pairs of tiny orange spots near the scent glands. The third instar is also black, but has more white on the first abdominal segment and more small yellow or white spots on the abdomen. The lateral edges of the prothorax and mesothorax (first and second segments of the middle section of the body) are coloured. The colour of fourth instar nymphs is more variable. The background colour may be black or green and the lateral edge of each abdominal segment may have an area of pink. Antennae and legs vary from pink to dark brown. The small wing buds extend to the edge of the abdomen. Fifth instar nymphs are even more variable. They may be almost black to almost green with a pink abdominal fringe. Amongst the variable patterns, they all have three pairs of white or yellow abdominal spots near the scent glands. Most also have more small white spots.

They don't mention the red underside, but some of the images on the factsheet show this, although yours look particularly bright.

[David Riddell]

Interesting to go to the garden center and see warning leaflets from mpi.govt KEEP NEW ZEALAND STINK BUG FREE. Well fat chance of that but it would seem that they mean the Brown Marmorated Stink Bug!

Sounds like a narrow escape on the marmorated stink bug front, not for the first time apparently - https://www.freshfruitportal.com/news/2 ... etections/
Seems they'd be a nasty thing to have around, have suddenly started spreading rapidly round the world in just the last few years.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_mar ... _stink_bug
https://www.mpi.govt.nz/protection-and- ... stink-bug/

[flossiepip]

Looks like New Zealand will be getting a new insect soon, Trissolcus japonicus better know as the Samurai wasp to combat the new threat!

[Neil Fitzgerald]

A narrow escape on the marmorated bug, for now... It's putting some pressure on biosecurity defenses. http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/ ... iscoveries (argh, it's not a "beetle" and it doesn't have "fangs"...)