Spotty brood bug
| Spotty brood bug | ||||||||||
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Spotty brood bug ( Elasmucha grisea ) |
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| Systematics | ||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||
| Elasmucha grisea | ||||||||||
| ( Linnaeus , 1758) |
The spotty brood bug ( Elasmucha grisea ) is a bug from the family of sting bugs (Acanthosomatidae).
features
The spotty brood bug is gray-yellow, greenish and red-brown in color. The top of the body is littered with numerous dark point pits. On the underside of the body, only the breath openings (stigmas) are dark. The color becomes significantly darker red-brown in autumn. The side edge of the abdomen ( connexive ) is colored alternately light and dark. The bug reaches body lengths between six and nine millimeters.
The parent bug is the toothed breeding bug ( Elasmucha fieberi very similar). However, this also has dark point pits on the underside of the abdomen with overall more pronounced puncturing. Furthermore, in this species the front corners of the pronotum are drawn out into much clearer thorns, which, however, are only visible with a magnifying glass.
development
After mating, the female lays 40 to 50 eggs on the underside of leaves in June. The pronounced brood care behavior is striking . The female guards the eggs continuously for two to three weeks and remains sitting on the clutch. During this time it does not eat any food and defends the eggs against ants , spiders , beetles , other types of bugs and parasitic wasps by buzzing their wings and using a defense secretion . Even after hatching, the female stays with her offspring for two to three weeks and defends him. After the first molt, the female searches for food together with the young larvae. Studies have shown that when brood care is taken, almost 100 percent of the larvae survive, while the mortality rate in unguarded clutches is over 90 percent.
nutrition
The spotty brood bug lives on birches and alders and feeds on sap from the leaves.
distribution
The spotty brood bug is mostly common and widespread in large parts of Europe .
credentials
- ^ A. Melber, L. Hölscher, GH Schmidt: Further studies on the social behavior and its ecological significance in Elasmucha grises L. (Hem.-Het .: Acanthosomatidae). Zool. Number 205, 1980: pp. 27-38
- Ekkehard Wachmann : watch bugs - get to know . J. Neumann - Neudamm, Melsungen 1989, ISBN 3-7888-0554-4
literature
- Helgard Reichholf-Riehm: Insects. Orbis Verlag, Munich 1984, ISBN 3-572-01088-8
- Ekkehard Wachmann, Albert Melber, Jürgen Deckert: Bugs. Volume 4: Pentatomomorpha II: Pentatomoidea: Cydnidae, Thyreocoridae, Plataspidae, Acanthosomatidae, Scutelleridae, Pentatomidae. (= The animal world of Germany and the adjacent parts of the sea according to their characteristics and their way of life. 81st part). Goecke & Evers, Keltern 2008, pp. 50–55. ISBN 978-3-937783-36-9 .
