A weevil new for Wales

A couple of weeks ago I was in town for the Roald Dahl celebrations, which were fun but hectic - I've never seen the city centre so packed with people. While we took a breather in Bute Park I spotted some unfamiliar mines on one of the narrow-leaved willows (possibly Salix fragilis) growing near the castle.

On checking the leafmines.co.uk website back home it became obvious they were the work of one of the Isochnus weevils, but the website told me there are two species on willow which are indistinguishable on mine and larval characters. I emailed Rob Edmunds, who runs the website, and he said the adults are easy to rear - just wrap the leaf petiole in damp tissue and leave in a pot til they hatch. It didn't take long...this week two adults emerged and I was able to confirm, using Morris' RES keys, that these are Isochnus sequensi.

 

This species was not listed on Adrian Fowles' weevils of Wales online checklist (see here). I emailed Adrian and he has now confirmed this is the first record for Wales of this weevil, which has a mainly eastern distribution in the UK.

Scabious Sawfly (Abia sericea) larva

Found this little beastie on the decking on Tuesday night and after a bit of searching managed to ID it as a Scabious Sawfly - I do have a lot of scabious in the flower beds this year but haven't noticed this quite large (approx 30mm) larva so I don't know where it's been hiding. The adult has a very distinctive appearance so something to look out for in the future.

housefly with fungal infection

Found this fly dead on a curtain in the house - and after looking at hundreds of pictures trying to identify it I realised that the pale abdominal bands were in fact an indication of fungal spores emerging from between the abdominal segments. Not a particularly nice way to go ... even for a fly!

Butterfly Fest at Lavernock Point NR 18/09/2016

A nice sunny day and little wind brought out the butterflies on Sunday with Painted Lady (2), Red Admiral (3), Small Tortoiseshell (1) and alot of Large and Small Whites (circa 460). The largest quantity of Whites were in the middle field.

Creigiau garden - new visitors

Three new visitors to the garden, two species of fly and a beetle - none of which appear to have many records in VC41. All three are approx 4 - 5 mm and very distinctive in appearance, so I'm fairly confident with the IDs.

Meiosimyza decempunctata

Palloptera muliebris - This is one of the 'Trembling-wing Flies' and was continuously on the move, so  I had to try and get images through the sides of a plastic pot. Apologies for the resulting soft images.

Dromius quadrimaculatus

Parc Slip 11 September

Took the camera for a leisurely stroll around Parc Slip this morning, principally looking for damsels & dragons. There was an abundance of Common Darter but very little else, but amongst the many Eristalis sp hoverflies, I did spot a few Helophilus pendulus and a couple of Arctophila superbiens (confirmed by Roger Morris on UK Hoverflies). I've never seen the latter before and, looking on the new LERC Wales Reporting Database (Aderyn), I can't see any reports of sightings at Parc Slip ....

Front & back views of Arctophila superbiens

see-through larva of ????

Saw this on a Wallflower leaf on Tuesday afternoon. The front end is up - at least that is the direction it was moving. Size was approx 5-10mm. Grabbed some images but was distracted and when I looked back it had gone!

I assume it is a larva of some little garden beastie, but I have no idea where to start with this one. A Google search for 'transparent insect larvae ' came up with a lot of aquatics. Anyone have any ideas?