Post by nomad on Oct 18, 2016 9:13:14 GMT
Along a wetland track in a large lakeland area in the UK , a ditch was covered in Water-Mint (Mentha aquatica). If you want to find insects on a sunny day in late summer in this kind of habitat, those blue domed shaped flowers are the place to look and many Diptera including Hoverflies and a few Aglais urticae and Pieris Napi with singles of P. Icarus and Lycaena phlaeas were feeding at the blooms.
Suddenly my eye caught a metallic beetle on the Water-Mint. This proved to the Mint leaf Beetle, Chrysolina herbacea (Duftschmid 1825) of the Chrysomelidae family. The beetle larvae will feed on various mints and has even been found in gardens but it prefers wetland habitats with Water Mint. My find had one broken antennae, search as I might, I did not come across any other individuals but it was the end of September, late in the season for British Coleoptera and there might have been more here earlier in the year.
Chrysolina herbacea, September 2016.
Suddenly my eye caught a metallic beetle on the Water-Mint. This proved to the Mint leaf Beetle, Chrysolina herbacea (Duftschmid 1825) of the Chrysomelidae family. The beetle larvae will feed on various mints and has even been found in gardens but it prefers wetland habitats with Water Mint. My find had one broken antennae, search as I might, I did not come across any other individuals but it was the end of September, late in the season for British Coleoptera and there might have been more here earlier in the year.
Chrysolina herbacea, September 2016.
