Hedge and Frog-hoppers...

I think it was Homer (Simpson, not the Greek bloke of The Iliad fame) who said "If it wasn't for bad luck, I would have no luck at all."

That's how it feels some days anyhow. Days when you think that if they invented a pill for everlasting life, you'd die swallowing it!

Here then is my tale of bad luck: but in the best BBC manner (not) I shall try to create a balance by regaling you with one of good fortune (hopefully) too. 

I am not even sure this woeful fable is down to luck at all; and having done my utmost to research in every manner possible, (I even probed my annals) I am still none-the-wiser. Wanna know what this concerns then? Of course you do: you only have an 8 second attention span, and that ran out about...8 seconds ago!

YES...the dreaded female mosquito. I try to love all insects equally, but when I hear the high-pitched whine of an approaching mossie it tries my patience to say the least. But why do I keep getting bitten lately? For years and years, they didn't pester me at all. What has changed, or is it down to luck?

A few years ago I suffered a nasty bout of pneumonia, and I think that could be relevant! I'll expound on my theory shortly, but firstly here are some known reasons why you might be a target:
Tall people, overweight people, females in general, wearing dark clothes, and something I need to check out myself, your blood group can be an indicator, and I have no clue as to what my blood type is. Type O seems to be favoured by the little blighters.

The following clip from an article I read seemed quite harsh...

Non-attractive indeed!

I'll press pause on the mosquito rant there: it's already getting too wordy. Let's indulge in some bug photographs for a while...

Philaenus spumarius - A Common Froghopper

I often see the little froghoppers that make this 'cuckoo spit', but usually they are much smaller and yellow in colour. Once adult, they no longer need the protection of the foam bubbles. My guess is that this one had just completed its final moult and was still the pale, teneral colour of a freshly emerged adult hopper. 

A fully mature Common Froghopper

2019 has again proved to be quite a poor year for sightings of true bug nymphs. I have seen and photographed a few, but numbers have been well down for a few years in a row now. I was lucky enough to spot this character though: this is a late instar nymph of Rhabdomiris striatellus which is usually associated with oak.

Grypocoris stysi - A Mirid Bug

This little bug is found widely throughout the UK, usually on nettles in woodland, and sometimes umbellifers. The adults and larvae feed on both flower heads and small invertebrates such as aphids. 

I've found adults of this species too; this was in my garden on the cosmos flowers...

Grypocoris stysi (adult)

Miris striatus next: the nymphs of this species are rather ant-like and are quite dark in contrast to the striking adults...

Miris striatus nymph (Miridae)

I have seen lots of these Fencepost Jumping Spiders over the years, but never one quite as long as this one...

It really was like a stretch-spider! I guess one spider is probably one too many, and so let's move on to something much nicer shall we. How about a bug carrying its own excrement on its back...

Cassida viridis larva

Yum! Well I suppose the idea is to put off any would be predator; it would certainly make me think twice about making a meal of this one. Here's what the adult looks like, much better huh...

Cassida viridis - A Green Tortoise Beetle

I still have to tell you about my stroke of good fortune, don't I. Firstly though, let's return briefly to the mosquito story. Doctor Jonathan Gray, a medical entomologist, says that your metabolic rate could be a prime factor in making you attractive to the local mosquito population.

He concludes that mosquitoes use CO2 as their primary means of identifying bite targets. “All vertebrates produce carbon dioxide, so what better way could there be for a mosquito to cue in on a host?” Physically exerting yourself raises your metabolic rate, he adds. 

My theory is that since having pneumonia a while back, I know that my lungs have never fully recovered, and that means I can get short of breath much faster than before. A raised metabolic rate makes me irresistible to females! Female MOSQUITOES that is of course.

And the good news is?

By the way, I never did understand that song by Hedgehoppers Anonymous: 'It's Good News Week'

Lyrics: 

It's good news week

Someone's dropped a bomb somewhere

Contaminating atmosphere

And blackening the sky

It's good news week

Someone's found a way to give

The rotting dead a will to live

Go on and never die have you heard the news...

Irony I guess? Anyhow, I digress, my little bit of good fortune was finding this on one of my early morning walks with the hound...

A FIVE-leaf clover...count 'em...FIVE!

I've found a number of four-leaved across the years, but never five. I needed to find out more and so I plucked my Googling finger from inside my shirt, where it had been scratching my ever so itchy mossie bites, and got typing. That isn't my question at the top of this article by the way, that's just what came up when I put 5 leaf-clover into Google...

The good news then is that I am one in 20,000 (and I always thought I'd been won in a raffle). Surely by default this means though that I will need 20,000 more walks before I find another? No time like the present then; I'm away to cut that down to 19,999 walks required. One last photo to complete this update...

Long-jawed orb-weaver - Tetragnatha extensa

Frogs hop and Cuckoos spit?

Could I just take a moment to explain about commenting on my blog updates. In recent days I have become the target of spammers. I have been getting around 20+ spam comments each and every day. It takes time and effort to check, mark as spam and delete all of these and so I have been forced to change the blog settings until this is resolved.

And so...I have temporarily set commenting to 'Blog members only' I apologise for any inconvenience and hope it will be short-lived as I very much value your comments and don't want to discourage anyone from doing so. 

Many thanks, 'JJ'
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10/05/2015 I have been told that some people are experiencing difficulties with commenting and so I have re-set the comment option to how it was originally. 

Sorry for any inconvenience caused...

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As we steam into May full speed ahead, things are certainly accelerating on the bug-front. There has been an enormous increase in all kinds of invertebrates locally over the past few weeks, helped I am sure by a record amount of sunshine through April. Where then, shall I begin this latest update? How about choosing something unusual? Yet again it was one of my favourite places Comfort's Wood that would provide me with this find...

This tiny (2mm) creature taxed my equally tiny brain quite a bit, trying to find an identity for it. My initial suspicions were that it might be a bark-louse, or bark-fly as they now seem to be called. The 'neck' looked about right and as that was about all I could make out on such a small thing at the time, knew I would have to do some research once I could get a better view on the PC. 

There followed a protracted spell of internet searching as my books yielded a little less than nothing at all. It did seem as though it was a bark-fly but I just couldn't find any reference to any that appeared to cover themselves in this debris.

Finally, as I was about to admit defeat, I came across an article published by Cambridge Journals Online and written by A,Henderson and D.J.Hackett of 'The Lichenologist'. It seems to describe, if not the exact same species, a most similar one with the same behaviour. As there is a link provided to share the article within a blog, I am assuming there is no copyright breach involved. There is certainly none intended and it seems to be the best way to share the information:

Lichen and Algal Camouflage and Dispersal in the Psocid Nymph Trichadenotecnum Fasciatum

A. Henderson and D. J. Hackett (1986).

The Lichenologist, Volume 18, Issue02, April 1986, pp 199-200

http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?aid=771720

Please return to this update after reading the article though, or even better come back to it at the end of the update? ;-) 

I have been finding a few weevils recently...

Phyllobius pomaceus

I think this colourful one is the Green Nettle Weevil but separating the Phyllobius species can be really difficult and so I am partly relying on the fact that I found it on nettle. Even that isn't conclusive though as there are probably half a dozen more species that are also to be found on nettle.

Phyllobius pyri (?)

What I just said above! Phyllobius are tricky and so I can only say that this might be the Common Leaf Weevil...

I think I know what the next species is and I am certain that I know what they are doing...

Perapion hyrdrolapathi

Dock Weevils would be what these two are. I haven't added a question mark to the end of that statement because I am sure this time....well, almost...kind of...relatively...

Deporaus betulae

Similar to the Hazel Leaf-roller that I posted last time and utilising the same behaviour of rolling a leaf around the egg, this one however uses birch and so is called the Birch Leaf-roller. Oh! You may have noticed another small difference in that this one is black, rather than red.

A couple from the garden now. A Woundwort Shieldbug and a Green Tortoise Beetle...

Eysarcoris venustissimus

(I note that this bug (above) is another that has undergone a name change, previously known as Eysarcoris fabricii...)  

Cassida viridis

There are a few Damselflies to be sighted locally now as well. Although, still only 'Reds'...

The grass bugs are back too, nymphs and adults...

Leptopterna dolbrata (Nymph)

Leptopterna dolbrata is one of the common grass bugs and is widespread throughout the U.K. The other species this nymph could be is L.ferrugata but I plumped for dolbrata given the habitat was damp.

Stenodema laevigata

Again this is a species attracted by damper conditions and I actually found this one in the same spot as the previous bug. Best distinguished from other grass bugs by the coarse and densely pitted pronotum, according to the marvelous British Bugs website and overwintering as an adult, then mating in the spring with a new generation of adults appearing from July.

I've noticed a few Orange-tip butterfly eggs on the cuckoo-flower now...

Yet another thing that is beginning to show up in the long grasses is what we used to call  cuckoo spit. The term cuckoo spit refers to a foamy substance found on grass and all manner of plants actually in spring and summer. As you might expect, it doesn't come from cuckoos, or any other birds for that matter. It's an insect called a froghopper. 

The name seems to originate from the fact that it appears around the same time as the return of the cuckoo. The foam is created by the froghopper nymph as a protection from predators; it's generated by excreting the plant sap they feed on and mixing it with air...a kind of wet flatulence if you like!

The adults don't need to do this as they have a different strategy that involves camouflage and warning colours.

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I think that will probably do for this update, particularly as I have already started on the next. I will share one last picture. I began with a minute creature and so will end with another. I believe this to be a minute wasp. It was just 2mm long...

Until the next time...