Shield bugs

[David Riddell]

Slowly working my way through the shield bugs, though still a few to find! (Hopefully never a marmorated...). Waiting in the car for the Cook Strait ferry in Picton on Sunday afternoon I found this pittosporum shield bug (Monteithiella humeralis) crawling on my arm. Not sure when it joined the trip - had stayed the night in Upper Moutere, then done some stops unsuccessfully looking for wood ducks around Mapua, don't remember any pittosporums.

[flossiepip]

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I'd forgotten about this thread!

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[David Riddell]

Great photos as always, flossiepip. So the first one is a brown soldier bug (Cermatulus nasalis), and the third is a forest shield bug (Oncacontias vittatus), but what's that one in the middle???

[flossiepip]

Sorry David, its Rhopalimorpha lineolaris-Family Acanthosomatidae. A shield bug! Not my id I'm not that clever. Its a very handsome, striking bug though I think. You did brilliantly on the other id's.

[David Riddell]

Argh, so there's another shield bug family?! Just checked the NZ Inventory of Biodiversity, looks like only four local species in 2 genera, so not too hard to get to grips with...
Beautiful animal, where did you find it?
EDIT: Looking again, O. vittatus is also an acanthosomatid and not a pentatomid, so the two families really do look very similar to the nonspecialist eye.

[flossiepip]

Far North, Northland.

[David Riddell]

After more than two years of looking out for them, finally spotted my first native green shield bug, Glaucias amyoti, in my vegetable garden! Don't seem to be many shield bugs around here this year, possibly because of the drought, but this one stood out as being a very pretty bright shiny green, with the main diagnostic feature being the lack of the three pale dots across the back. It didn't seem to like the attention I was paying it, and held its outer wing cases out and fluttered its inner wings, and as it did so I got a distinct whiff of shield bug smell.

[Colin Miskelly]

Thanks for this post about Gaucias David - it meant that I recognised them immediately when Kate & I found a cluster of them on holly today. Kate has images to post on iNaturilist, but they look the same as yours (same size as vegetable bug, but darker and glossier, without the pale spots at the wing bases).

And no, we don't have holly in our garden (Mt Cook, Wellington), but there is a large plant within government-approved walking distance

Cheers
Colin

[David Riddell]

Had noticed a few of our monarch caterpillars had been dying and a few days ago found a shield bug nymph sucking one dry. Posted pictures on iNaturalist and people there confirmed it was a brown soldier bug - has more colourful antennae and legs than nymphs of the green shield bugs. I posted here about seeing one a couple of years ago but hadn't seen one since.

[flossiepip]

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Schellenbergs Soldier Bug, I think!