Well, this was a nice surprise. Not for you, perhaps – “OMG! Not more insects, surely?” (Ed.) – and not for the shieldbug, which was so determined to get away from the camera that after racing around the Viburnum for a few minutes it finally adopted the beetle strategy of simply leaping off into space, after which I had to step hurriedly backwards out of the shrub border for fear of accidentally standing on it… but it certainly brought a smile to my face.
My first thought had been that it was a Green Shieldbug, but the colouring was wrong, and all it took was a second glance for me to spot the yellow edging of the pronotum and connexivum which is absolutely diagnostic of a Gorse Shieldbug (Piezodorus lituratus). It’s not the first one I’ve ever found here: I beat one from one of our Norway maples back in October 2022. But that one played even harder to get, and all I managed before it took off and disappeared back into the tree were a couple of rather poor record shots. While this image isn’t going to win me Close-up Photographer of the Year, it is at least an improvement.
So, why the excitement about a relatively common species?
Many authorities state that you’ll only find the Gorse Shieldbug in places where gorse, or its close relative broom, are growing – and that would not be here, on the thick, limey clay of the Shire. Gorse and broom both prefer thin, sandy soils in sunny places, and gorse especially is known in England as a shrub of acid heathlands. I did once plant a broom here, but the poor thing survived for little more than a year before succumbing to our soil and keeling over. However, since I found my first Gorse Shieldbug in this garden, I’ve come across a couple of other specimens at Trench Wood, which is equally unlikely territory, and I’ve come to think that either the bug is changing its habits (as the Juniper Shieldbug and Box Bug have done, becoming far more successful and widespread in the process), or the literature is underplaying its versatility.
I turned to Shieldbugs by Richard Jones, who of course lists gorses and brooms as the Gorse Shieldbug’s foodplants, but also mentions Dyer’s Greenweed and Laburnum. We did have a Laburnum at one stage, down towards the wild garden, but the 2007 flood drowned it; it wouldn’t surprise me though if there are one or two surviving somewhere in the village. But… this looks like a very fresh adult. What could it have been eating right here? “It may even,” says Mr Jones, “breed on herbaceous plants like Red Clover (Trifolium pratense).” This is good news: clover I can do, though we have more White Clover (Trifolium repens) than Red in the garden. And now I notice that British Bugs mentions clover as well, which is positive, and Wikipedia really hedges its bets by saying “various legumes (Fabaceae)”. This is interesting: the Fabaceae is a huge family of leguminous trees, shrubs and herbaceous plants, which includes the clovers, vetches (present in Tilly’s field, just a couple of hundred metres away), and Bird’s-foot Trefoil, which has been abundant in our garden this summer. It also includes Wisteria, of which there are several spectacular specimens in the village, Lupins, and my own Perennial Pea (Lathyrus latifolius).
Clearly there’s no way of knowing if the Gorse Shieldbug can live on a specific leguminous plant until and unless it’s observed actually eating the stuff, but given that it’s said to eat clover, I’m starting to feel more hopeful that this individual might be a garden native rather than a casual visitor, and that our damp alkaline trench could actually be supporting a population of this handsome bug. Which I’m now mentally, and optimistically, renaming the Leguminous Shieldbug.
R: C5, D10.
