Blushing bride

This photo works as a follow-up to yesterday's. The female Green Shieldbug, on the right here, noticed me trying to photograph their nuptials, and literally dragged her partner across the depth of the aucuba leaf, over the edge, and down into darkness and privacy. You can see that both these individuals have more extensive red highlights around the edge of the abdomen than yesterday's specimen, and as I mentioned in that post their copulatory organs are stained red as well.

This is a view you don't often get of a shieldbug, and it's interesting to see their 'beaks', or more properly, stylets - the slender mouthparts they use to pierce the plant material on which they feed. Having done this they inject saliva into the wound they've made, to begin breaking down the plant tissue. This can cause pitting or scarring on plant and tree leaves, which is why shieldbugs are sometimes treated as pests in agricultural settings, commercial plant nurseries and woodlands.