palomena prasina (spring adult)

This fine fellow is a common green shield bug.  Shield bugs belong to the order hemiptera, whose members have a rostrum, or sucking beak, which they stick into plants.  The common green is the most plentiful in my part of the world.

final instar, kindly demonstrating rostrum

There are five nymph stages.  I think the little ones are really quite cute.

second instar – cute or what?

third instar

There are several other varieties of shield bug that frequent our neighbourhood.  I think this next one may be a hawthorn shield bug (acanthosoma haemorrhoidale).

Hawthorn shield bug? Maybe

But as green shield bugs change colour in the autumn, when this was taken, this one may just be another palomena prasina, teasing me.

So that’s the natural history done, now on to the art, which is what interests me most.  The following is another version of the second instar shot.

An instar’s world

I like this one better than the portrait crop I showed earlier.  I like showing the instar as a small point within its (rather attractive in my opinion) grassy world.  But a suggestion I often hear is that I crop closer with my bug shots.  What do you think?  All opinions very welcome.