looduskalender.ee

 

 Who meets a  striped bug cannot hesitate about what it is.

 

The length of the bug is up to one and a half centimetres, with a flat and wide-bodied look, and no one else wears a striped Vatican Swiss Guard uniform.

 

This uniform announces to all that I taste abominably foully, and that it is not worthwhile to touch me. So it moves around quite freely and who is interested can observe the activities of the bug nicely. It likes being on the parsley family plants sucking plant sap – a particular favourite is wild carrot. The striped bug is not a plant pest, but rather enriches our nature with its bright colours.

 

With the arrival of summer the beginning of new generations is initiated. Eggs are laid on leaves; from the eggs larva hatch within a couple of weeks but their uniform is not as brightly striped to start with.

 

Only at the end of summer the young striped bugs wear the representative uniform, and as imagos they go to hibernate in autumn.