CV measures #38

Ornate shield bug
Walking through the woods yesterday chatting to my friend Josie on my mobile I noticed a red bug out the corner of my eye. At first I thought it was Corizus hyoscyami - a little bug which I find fairly frequently in that area, but on closer inspection I realised it was something much less common.
It was in fact an Ornate shield bug Eurydema ornata. Needless to say I was delighted as it was a new species for me, and even better as i planned to concentrate on shield bugs this year. 
It is a relatively recent arrival in the UK, but established in the channel islands. On the mainland it has been found in coastal areas of Dorset, Hampshire and Sussex although Horsham could not really be called coastal. The bug overwinters as an adult and feeds on plants from the cress and cabbage family

Grateful today for -

The fact that after all these years I can still find new species I have never seen beforeru