2019 July 10

 

Jeremy Tatum writes:

  It didn’t take long for some of yesterday’s unidentified insects to get identified, thanks to Libby Avis, Scott Gilmore, Gordon Hart, and Cheryl Hoyle on one of her own photographs.   Here is what we have so far:

   This one is Coccinella septempunctata.  I should have got that one myself, but one of its septem puncta is very small and misled me!

Coccinella septempunctata (Col.: Coccinellidae)  Cheryl Hoyle

 

   This one is the bug Eurygaster amerinda.  There is just one small point nagging at me.  E. amerinda is a

North American species, so that’s probably what it is.  There is, however, a very similar European

species, E. testudinaria, and, to my entirely untutored eye,Cheryl’s photograph looks slightly more like

the European insect than the native North American one.  We do, of course, have lots of

European insects and other organisms here, though I don’t know if there are North American records of

testudinaria.   Cheryl sends a second photograph of it, not quite as sharp as yesterday’s, but it does

show a more dorsal view:

Eurygaster amerinda (Hem.: Scutelleridae)  Cheryl Hoyle

 

   The greenbottle is probably Lucilia sericata:

 

Lucilia sericata (Dip.: Calliphoridae)  Cheryl Hoyle

   Libby, Scott and Gordon all came up with Rhagonycha fulva for the soldier beetle, and, for good

 measure, Cheryl came up with a second photograph of two of them in copula:

Rhagonycha fulva (Col.: Cantharidae)  Cheryl Hoyle

 

   I didn’t think anyone would be able to identify the very small beetle that Cheryl photographed

 yesterday, but I had greatly underestimated local expertise.   Libby, Scott and Cheryl herself all put it in

the buprestid genus Agrilus.  I had no idea that any buprestids were that small.  Apparently the genus

Agrestis has the reputation of being the genus with the largest number (c3000) of species in the animal

kingdom, just as Coleoptera is the largest Order (“God is someone with an inordinate fondness for

beetles” – JBS Haldane)

Agrilus sp. (Col.: Buprestidae) Cheryl Hoyle

 

   The rest of yesterday’s unidentified insects is a work in progress.  We’ll post any more identifications if

and when we can.