Subject: Different species of bugs aggregated?
Location: Rome, Italy
October 23, 2015 11:56 am
Hello,
my dad found this aggregation of bugs in Rome and took a picture. He then sent it to me since I am studying zoology and I started doing some researches about it. By reading your website, I found out that the situation we are looking at is immature bugs, forming aggregation. However that post was about Harlequine bugs, individually coloured of both colours black and red. While in my picture some bugs are red with black stains, while other, in the same aggregation, are entirely black.
Therefore I was wondering, are they different species? Or maybe black ones are younger and still did not develop the red colouration?
Hope you can give me some answer 🙂
Thank you very much!
Signature: Costanza
Dear Costanza,
We believe this is an aggregation of Ebony Bugs in the family Thyreocoridae, and that the red individuals are the immature ones. British Bugs has images of one species. Also pictured on British Bugs is the Burrowing Bug, Canthophorus impressus, in the family Cydnidae. Alas, there is not enough detail in your image to be certain.
From afar it looks like a pomegranate… Wanna bite?