Here be Dragons... and a couple of Damsels

Broad-bodied Chaser (female)

I always feel excited by the first sightings of dragonflies and damselflies. These insects are so dazzling and so colourful. They are somehow so alien, too, with their mysterious lives, delicate wings and vast eyeballs.

This Four-spotted Chaser in the photos below was seen at RSPB Minsmere last weekend...

If dragonflies can be hard to identify at times, damselflies (with a few exceptions) are often difficult to sort out with certainty, particularly since they can look so varied at different stages of their development. I am going to need some help with the one below. I shall post it on iSpot... and keep you posted, but please leave a comment if you know.

I suspect this is am ore common one. Again I will let you know when I find out.

And finally, to add a bit of fiery colour, here is a completely different insect, a Red-and-Black Froghopper. The photo was also taken last weekend at RSPB Minsmere.

Carlton Marshes Nature Reserve

We spent much of Bank Holiday Monday here at Carlton Marshes, a nature reserve in the care of the Suffolk Wildlife Trust. The small bird (is it perhaps a Whitethroat?) was singing from the highest point of the willow as we arrived.

The Carlton Marshes reserve comprises fen, meadow and waterway. The tranquil views always remind me of a Cuyp landscape - and, of course, the Netherlands are not far away!

 

The bushes and trees were alive with birdsong. Summer migrants continue to arrive - though I have yet to see a Swift.

This small iridescent beetle attracted my attention. I assumed at first that it was a Dock Beetle, but with its marked triangular scutellum behind the pronotum and between the forewing bases, I am not so sure. It was very small (the size of an average 7-spot Ladybird). I don't believe it was a rare Rose Chafer Beetle, (the size of a small fingernail), though I was interested to discover that these beetles had been recorded in Suffolk in the last five years.

The sun came out intermittently, encouraging insects to show their faces. I think the creature below is a Common Cranefly.

We were thrilled to find our first Damselfly of 2014, which you can see in the photo below. I have not been able to identify it with any certainty yet, but its opaque grey-blue eyes must surely provide a clue.

We also saw our first Dragonflies of the year in the form of a couple of Hairy Dragonflies, members of the Hawker family, who were too quick for my camera.

The marshy areas were alive with butterflies. Most were Orange-tips, but this seems to be a Green-veined White.

Up until last Monday the only caterpillars I had seen this year may well have been from Brown-tail Moths since they were in tents on the Blackthorn bushes we passed on our way back from Stansted Airport some weeks ago. As you can see from the photo below, that situation has now been rectified ...

I seem to be drawn to red and black insects, but this fine specimen below is (to state the obvious) not a Ladybird. It is a Red-and-Black Froghopper, one of the largest homopterans in the UK.

I see I spotted one of these a year ago at Carlton Marshes.

This time we saw three.

And finally, our eyes alerted on another red and black insect lurking in the verge - a 2-spot Ladybird, and my first of 2014. It seemed very small. I shall be recording it on the UK Ladybird Survey.

Eye-Catching Insects: Red-and-Black Froghopper at Carlton Marshes

We spent part of the weekend at Carlton Marshes, a nature reserve under the care of the Suffolk Wildlife Trust near Lowestoft. I am always on the look-out for Ladybirds, and as I scanned the grassy verge at the edge of the car park, a red insect caught my eye. I could see immediately, even from some distance, that it was not a Ladybird. I grabbed my camera for a record shot, before moving a little closer.

I have only seen one of these insects once before - and that was at Sutton Hoo last year. The insect is, I believe, a Red-and-Black Froghopper (Cercopis vulnerata). I saw the Sutton Hoo one on 6 June 2012, so around the same time of year.

This insect is one of our largest Homopterans. These bugs are close relatives of our Hemiptera: both classes of creature have piercing-sucking mouthparts. Those Homoptera that have wings are graced with ones that are uniform in structure, hence their name, Homoptera, meaning “same wing".

It is rare to see the larvae as these develop inside solidified 'cuckoo-spit', tucked away underground on the roots of plants.  

As I mentioned, I like to keep an eye out for Ladybirds. I also enjoy seeing other brightly coloured insects. You can see three here that caught my attention when I was in the Peloponnese back in 2010.  

A question has arisen in my mind. We all know that brightly coloured insects or amphibians often use their colour as a warning (Aposematism) to potential predators, and indeed some may be toxic in some way.

Why is it safer or more effective, I wonder, to stand out from the crowd in a fiery coat

 than to be hidden in the verge with grass-green elytra for 'background matching' camouflage? 

Camouflage or Cryptic Coloration, of course, is itself essentially a form of visual mimicry. The Froghopper here is presumably protected to some degree by warning coloration.

Scientist have identified several kinds of warning coloration in the natural world, including ...

• Batesian mimicry, when a harmless mimic poses as harmful
• Müllerian mimicry, when two or more harmful species mutually advertise themselves as harmful
• and Mertensian mimicry, when a killer mimic resembles a less harmful but lesson-teaching model.

You might be interested in this National Geographic article on the subject of camouflage.

Rider: my fascination in these insects (and indeed on most items on this blog) is purely from the perspective of an interested amateur. If readers spot inaccuracies, please feel free to leave a comment and point them out! I blog because I love to discover more about the natural world. 

Red-and-Black Froghopper (Cercopis vulnerata)

We visited Sutton Hoo yesterday afternoon, where this striking insect reminded me (a little) of the Sutton Hoo helmet, in terms of shape and protection!

You can read more about the Red-and-Black Froghopper here. This was a first sighting for me. Ladybirds apart, I haven't seen such a brightly coloured red and black insect since my visit to Pylos in Greece in 2010.