True bug 2 - squash bug

The saga of my now diminishing rear continues - After blipping yesterday, I purchased a bunch of bananas and a portion of steamed rice. Neither of these items feature in my top ten culinary delights, if fact they would be towards the lower end of my bottom hundred list. I am not a fussy eater and there are few foods that I just cannot eat, mainly cabbage, broad beans and for some strange reason that eludes me, I cannot drink tea, probably England's most popular drink, I have tried to be rational about tea, but every time I try it, I have to spit it out and rinse my mouth. The cabbage and broad beans comes down to psychological scarring from being force fed as a young boy.

I tried to eat some rice and banana, even though I was very hungry, I could only manage a couple of tablespoons of rice and half a banana. All went well and even hours later there were no violent repercussions. 9pm I was really hungry again and feeling just fine, so I cooked up a packet of flavored boiled noodles. This was such a bad idea. By midnight I was once more beating the well trodden path. This continued until 10am this morning when things finally calmed down. So later in the day, it will be back to the rice and bananas again.

Today's blip was a no brainer. All I had to do was go to the common and snap a top view of the bug that I posted yesterday, as a follow up. The mimosa bush is infested with these bugs and was never going to be a problem finding a specimen. I did not even bother photographing anything else, as it was now very hot and I really wasn't that enthused about belly crawling for butterflies, I was still angry with myself for yesterdays mistake and another nights sleep lost.

I really wanted to show the top view, primarily so you could see the curious hind legs with the curve at the thigh and the two imposing spikes. I have not been able to determine if these spikes serve any purpose, they are not used in the mating process, nor have I observed any other use of them. They must serve some purpose, as Darwinian evolution always has a purpose.

I really thought that this unique rear leg feature would make identification a piece of cake, but not so. There is a group of true bugs called 'leaf foot' or something like that, were the rear pair of legs look like a leaf, but still I never found this bug. Maybe one of my blip friends could give it ten minutes, to see if you can come up with anything.

As I mentioned yesterday, the body is a rich pinky color in flight and you can get a hint of this, looking at the coloration of the opaque wings, especially at the sides. Where the wings overlap, the color of the wing material is more prevalent with there being two layers.

Tomorrow I will try to blip a female or better still, a mating pair, so that the differences can be seen. Again, not difficult to find on this busy mimosa bush. But I am sure that I will be looking for more interesting blips tomorrow and this plan will be more of a backup.

Dave