the answer is....
with difficulty and very, very slowly.
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| He's not very well balanced... |
This is only the third time in my life I've ever seen them...
I thought that that was last year when I saw one...
but later identified it as the closely related Cassida sanguinolenta or one of many similar Cassida sp...
they are difficult to identify... but the most common is C. viridis... Susan, of Loire Valley Nature is a "professional splitter" [A Taxonomist]... I'm a "lumper"... I only need to get close to satisfy my brain...
The first time was...
"summer holidays, 1964... on bramble, on wasteland nr. Harrow & Wealdstone Station"...
the second...
can't remember year, plant or place...
mainly because it wasn't the first?
Or because I had so much trouble identifying it the first time...
I do remember the period tho'... late 1980s.
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| The head is up on this one that Pauline spotted, but the body is well clamped down... |
This, though is the first time I have got any colour pictures...
1964... no camera with me... I had a brand new Practica Nova IIb at that time...
and some extension tubes!!
I used to make small pencil sketches in a notebook...
long since lost in a move.
And any picture would have been B&W anyway...
I was into "home-bathroom darkroom" photography in the mid-60s...
and colour chemicals were way out of my pocket money range!!
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| Even a bucket of water didn't stop these two! [Actually, I'd just watered the mint when I spotted this pair!!] |
Late 80's... no camera with me... Pentax ME Super was my camera then...
left at home along with a neat macro device that I still use.
I used to go out on specific "photographic hunts"...
a roll of 36 slides was costly.
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| The way the lower beetle can clamp down is visible here... |
Full choice of equipment close to hand...
and, being digital, film was free!!
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| Dried off a bit!! |
I think that they are a particularly charming beetle....
when they move it is like the Bloody-nosed Beetle...
very deliberate, but surprisingly fast.
They clamp tight to the leaf and look a bit like a leaf gall...
which is what I thought I was drawing in '64...
until the "plant gall" stuck out an antenna...
These ones were "otherwise engaged", but the male[?] was firmly fixed to her[?] back....
I wondered if he has the same "furry feet" that Susan mentions with regard to the Lesser Bloody Nosed Beetle.
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| You can see a yellow fringe round the visible left foot |
5 comments:
I'm sure this species has the same hairy feet for the same purpose. It's in the same family as the Bloody Noses, and the males of many (all?) in this family have the special hairy feet.
I've never seen this beetle, so I am suitably green with envy.
I've never seen this beetle, ...
Plant some mint!!
I noticed that it was in the same family... so my surmise was right...
he kept twitching...
left..pause...right..pause...left...
don't know if the was having difficulties or trying to excite the "missus"...
What a strange and interesting beetle, will keep an eye out on our mint...
Great pics, Tim.
The beetle is very well camouflaged so well spotted.
I spotted the two making more...
because the male wasn't clamped to the leaf...
but not before I watered them!!
Pauline spotted the singleton that WAS clamped to the leaf at first...
Unfortunately, whilst their camoflage is superb on the "traditional mint, two boxes along is some Black Peppermint...
they would stand out on those leaves like flourescent beacons...
It is still pouring down here... please pack waterproofs when you come over... as you say you'll be restricted for room, that might trigger "Sods' Law" and get the sunshine to break through the interminable clouds...
As I type, there is a very soggy, very hungry, depressed-looking Long-Eared Owl sitting just the other side of the bridge into the meadow...
and last evening, I saw a snail trying to escape up the lounge window!!!
The weather is bound to improve tomorrow... the long weekend of Pentecost is over tonight...
such a shame for all those people who have had things organised for this w/e...
viz...
yesterday was the "Art and Tradition" day at Boussay...
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