Some weeks ago, back in August this year, I spent some time in my yard, observing and photographing two insect species that were abundantly present around my house in that period.
This is a post about that.
It all started with these minuscule eggs ...
... set like pool balls on the leaf of grass, photographed on 6th August 2021, early in the morning. I went to pick a couple of figs for breakfast, and under the fig tree, I noticed the little spheres.
I thought that it will be cool to remember the eggs, and come see what's going on with them the next day. But I forgot about it, and on the 7th August 2021 I was sniffing around the yard, in the area not far from the kitchen window, a place covered with various wild plants. There, on the Convolvulus arvensis bindweed that grew around other weeds, I found many small yellow larvae ...
... and a bit later, I found a few adults of that species as well. Only in the late afternoon, I remembered the eggs. Better late than never, I thought, and went to see if there's something new on the green grass under the fig tree. On the following photograph ...
... you can see what I saw back then. Minuscule shield bug nymphs, that recently came out of their spherical containers, were resting on the empty eggshells. These are the young versions of the Nezara viridula stink bug. Today, while preparing this post, I learned that the newborn nymphs don't feed the first three days, just rest like this, in the place where they were born.
A week later, on the 14th August 2021, in the morning before going to the beach, I spent an hour or so in the garden, and I found more of these yellow larvae ...
... of the small Psyllobora vigintiduopunctata lady beetle. This is one of the very few non - predatory lady beetles that live in this area. While the other Coccinellidae in my yard and garden prey on aphids and some other minuscule insects and their eggs, this colorful beetle eats the fungal growth called mildew, that looks like fine, white powder spread across the surface of some leaves.
On this enlargeable picture composed of four action shots, you can observe the hungry larva devouring the delicious white particles.
There was a larva practically on every bindweed leaf.
A bit further, under the cherry tree ...
... on a yellow, fallen leaf ...
... I found another cluster of stink bug eggs. It looks that the eggs on this photograph hatched three or more days before the shot was taken.
On the 16th August 2021, early in the morning, I was in my garden again.
The larvae and the adult lady beetles were devouring the mildew ...
... one of those larvae ended up on its back, glued to some sticky threads, so I took a couple of shots with a good view on the usually hidden anatomy of the lower side of the body ...
... and I found a group of Nezara viridula nymphs on the nearby plant.
These older nymphs, that had gone through molting and changes, didn't look like the very young ones from the beginning of this post.
After the 16th, I didn't check what's going on with these two species in my yard. I forgot about them while rambling and photographing through the woods and across the coastal meadows ...
... so now, with this group portrait of young sting bugs and the minuscule Heliophanus kochii jumping spider in the center bottom of the picture, it's time to end this little insect story from my garden.
As always here on HIVE, the photographs are my work - THE END.
