Dicyphus pallicornis
| Dicyphus pallicornis | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Dicyphus pallicornis |
||||||||||||
| Systematics | ||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||
| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Dicyphus pallicornis | ||||||||||||
| ( Fever , 1861) |
Dicyphus pallicornis belongs to the family of soft bugs or blind bugs (Miridae). The way of life of the species is closely tied to the red foxglove ( Digitalis purpurea ).
Distribution and habitats
Dicyphus pallicornis is distributed from southern Scandinavia through western and central Europe to the western Mediterranean and North Africa. The species was introduced to North America. Their original distribution corresponds to the natural distribution area of their food plant, the red foxglove, which mainly grows in forest clearings, on forest edges and paths. The bug has spread far beyond this with cultivated and overgrown plants of the foxglove and is now often found in gardens and in ruderal corridors .
features
The insects reach body lengths between 2.6 and 4 millimeters (short-winged) or 3.5 to 4.1 millimeters (long-winged). The top of the body, legs and antennae are very finely haired. The body color is initially green and changes to gray-yellow and gray-brown, sometimes matt black, with increasing age. The animals are elongated-oval in outline. The light head is clearly set off. He wears two large compound eyes and two dark vertical bands on his forehead (frons). In the front part of the pronotum there are two distinct bulges. Immediately behind this is a transverse channel that extends to the side edge and is a distinguishing feature from other types of soft bugs.
Way of life
The bug lives exclusively monophagous on red foxgloves. It sucks the leaves and stems as well as parts of the inflorescences. The adult animals ( Imagines ) and the larvae keep mostly hidden at the leaf bases on. The animals overwinter in the adult stage. From the end of April, the females lay their eggs on the leaves of the basal rosettes. The pale green larvae appear from May. The species forms one or two generations a year. In heat-favored locations, if two generations can be formed, the appearance times may overlap with adults and larvae present all year round from May to October. The adult animals are also active on winter days and can be observed on the underside of the leaves of the rosettes, and more rarely also older larvae.
literature
- E. Wachmann , A. Melber & J. Deckert: Bugs Volume 2: Cimicomorpha: Microphysidae (lichen bugs), Miridae (soft bugs) . Redesign of the bugs in Germany, Austria and German-speaking Switzerland. (Dahl: The animal world of Germany and the adjacent parts of the sea according to their characteristics and their way of life, part 75) Verlag Goecke & Evers, Keltern, 2004. ISBN 3-931-37457-2
- E. Security guard: Bugs - get to know, watch. Neumann-Neudamm 1989, ISBN 3-7888-0554-4
- E. Wagner: Heteroptera Hemiptera. - In: Brohmer, P., P. Ehrmann & G. Ulmer (eds.): Die Tierwelt Mitteleuropas. IV, 3 (Xa). - Leipzig 1959, 173 pp.
Web links
- Dicyphus pallicornis in Fauna Europaea
- www.britishbugs.org.uk - photos, description