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Unusual Green Shield-bug Behaviour
e6filmuser
Registered Users Posts: 3,378 Major grins
This was the first one of the season, yesterday, in sunshine. The bug was on a leaf at about my waist height but the angle of the leaf was closer to vertical than to horizontal. So I had to kneel down and point the lens upwards.
As I got a closer look at the bug I noticed its antennae (in the position shown) vibrating rapidly up and down by about a segment width, for about two seconds, followed by a paused of a similar period before repeating the cycle. The effect was that the antennae became slightly blurred to the naked eye.
This continued throughout the session of a few minutes, continued afterwards, and probably preceded my arrival.
The freezing action of the flash does not show any of this.
EM-1, Kiron 105, f16, twin flash, hand-held.
I tried to find information about this behaviour, which I have never see in dozens of such encounters with the species. I did find one example, for another species of shield-bug, in a different genus:
One of the largest stink bugs is Edessa bifida. This bug is large, smooth and rounded, with a very tiny head. The antennae of both adults and nymphs seem to never stop vibrating.
http://www.austinbug.com/pentatomidae.html
Now I just have to wait for everyone who has ever photographed this species to say that they see it all the time.
I returned a while later, to see if the behaviour had attracted a mate, but the original bug had gone away.
Harold
As I got a closer look at the bug I noticed its antennae (in the position shown) vibrating rapidly up and down by about a segment width, for about two seconds, followed by a paused of a similar period before repeating the cycle. The effect was that the antennae became slightly blurred to the naked eye.
This continued throughout the session of a few minutes, continued afterwards, and probably preceded my arrival.
The freezing action of the flash does not show any of this.
EM-1, Kiron 105, f16, twin flash, hand-held.
I tried to find information about this behaviour, which I have never see in dozens of such encounters with the species. I did find one example, for another species of shield-bug, in a different genus:
One of the largest stink bugs is Edessa bifida. This bug is large, smooth and rounded, with a very tiny head. The antennae of both adults and nymphs seem to never stop vibrating.
http://www.austinbug.com/pentatomidae.html
Now I just have to wait for everyone who has ever photographed this species to say that they see it all the time.
I returned a while later, to see if the behaviour had attracted a mate, but the original bug had gone away.
Harold
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Comments
--- Denise
Musings & ramblings at https://denisegoldberg.blogspot.com
Something like fingernail size, one of the larger bugs.
Harold