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Death's-head leafhopper
Posted by Graeme Lyons , Monday, 18 July 2011 18:51
That's just a name I made up for this little leafhopper that I found in one of my quadrats today but you can see why. I didn't notice the markings until I blew the photos up on the screen. I'm pretty sure it's the rather common Allygus mixtus but I have used nothing more than the British Bugs website to come to this conclusion, not a key, so I make the identification tentatively. I was at Badlands today, monitoring vegetation. I decided to try and identify any invertebrates that I did not recognise within the quadrats but apart from a very wet bee, this was all I managed to get a photo of.
On the way past the big Aspen where I saw the Light Orange Underwings in the spring I spotted what looked like berries on some of the leaves. I thought that this gall looked easy enough to identify, it keyed out to the fly Harmandiola globuli. Frustratingly, there was no one home in the single specimen I collected so I can't even tick it.
The meadows are looking great this year, with more Betony than I have ever seen. I'm surprised how lush it looks compared to this time last year.
Now, I have had two new books arrive today so I will be immersing myself in those for the next few hours. I think there may have to be several book reviews in the near future.
Posted in
Hi Graeme, have you looked for Coleophora wockeella at Badlands? As you probably know it's only known from Chiddingfold at the moment but could be elsewhere, and with masses of Betony like that it could be worth a look. Small larval cases will be evident in Sept/Oct.
Great blog, learning a lot by lurking here!
cheers
Dan Hoare