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Daniel aka Bugman,
Thanks for the reply and the positive id. I haven’t graduated from the common names of all the bugs just yet! Between your site and bugguide i have learned alot though and thank you for that. I have to say your site is much easier to navigate than bugguides. I hope when you get a chance you could help me figure out what type of beetle i have here, for the life of me i cannot id these guys. They are quite abundant in my yard i seem to always find them on the plant Axocatzin. I am sending pics of the same beetle, i believe, just different stages of its development. I was also wondering if it was ok to add a link to your site onto my bug page here, http://www.birdnerdnaturephotography.com/canon30dpictures/insectsandwildlife.html if you don’t mind. Thanks for all your time and all that you do!
Tracy Palmer
http://www.birdnerdnaturephotography.com/

Hi again Tracy,
Thanks for asking if you can link to our site. That would be fine. In the future, please limit your submissions to one species as posting letters with photos of both Hemipterans and Ants is quite awkward on our site. Also, please include your location when you send images. We had to peruse your previous email to confirm the images are from Houston, Texas. We are fascinated that you believe these are two stages of the same insect. They are definitely Hemipterans. We found a close, but not perfect match on BugGuide with a Shield Backed Bug in the genus Orsilochides with the only species being Orsilochides guttata. Interestingly, there are no nymphs posted to BugGuide. Though Shield Bugs only go through incomplete metamorphosis, there are sometimes drastic color and marking changes between the nymphs and the adults. It will be interesting to see if your observation is accurate. We will check with Eric Eaton to see if he can add or correct this identification.

Wow, thanks for the quick reply. I’ve found the black and white ones aggregated on the Axocatzin and the next day they were smaller versions of the brown ones, thats what led me to believe they were maybe the same just different phases. The browns ones are always found on the same plant with the nymphs. I’ll find the brown ones flying around the yard but if i see the black and white ones there is always a brown one nearby. The brown ones are a little larger than the b&w and when they turn to adults they look bigger but same color.Attaching a poor pic of the 2 associating together. These were 2 i recently had been observing one had changed to brown the other was still b&w. The brown ones always move alot faster than the b&w ones thats why this is the only pic i have got of them together, if you notice, it looks as though the brown one has remnants of the b&w color towards the edge of the body. Note that on the day i took this pic; in the morning they were both b&w, by the afternoon the one had turned brown. Location is Houston Texas my yard where i find the majority of bugs i take pics of.

Hi Tracy,
Thanks for the clarification. We hope all this additional information will assist Eric Eaton. Though your newest photo is blurry, it is great because it shows a different angle as well as the scale relationship between the two insects.

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5. Unusual Hemipteran Phenomenon: Leaf Footed Bugs and Shield Bugs Swarm ship in Mauritania (January 7, 2010)