[NatureNS] Western Conifer Seed Bugs in Wolfville

Date: Sat, 23 Dec 2006 14:36:56 -0400
From: Jim Wolford <jimwolford@eastlink.ca>
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Dec. 20, 2006 - Inside our house in Wolfville again I found a very
slow-moving LEAF-FOOTED BUG (COREIDAE), very probably a WESTERN CONIFER SEED
BUG (Leptoglossus occidentalis) -- by dumb luck there is a photo match in my
book, ³Insects -- Their Natural History and Diversity² (2006) by Stephen A.
Marshall, Firefly Books.  I took a single flash photo of the bug, and I also
collected it.  

[Chris, should I save it for the N.S. Museum?]

In the book, the caption for the photo of the WESTERN CONIFER SEED BUG says:
³Our most conspicuous common coreids are large (20 mm), slow-moving bugs
with flattened and expanded hind legs.  These big bugs are Western Conifer
Seed Bugs (Leptoglossus occidentalis), a species of leaf-footed bug that
didn¹t show up in eastern North America until about 1980.  L. occidentalis
has long been an abundant pest of conifer seeds in the west.  Leptoglossus
bugs are now among the most common Coreidae in the northeast, and can often
be seen on walls and in buildings in late fall as they aggregate for the
winter.²

One of my Wolfville neighbors, John Martens, noticed quite a few of these
Western Conifer Seed Bugs around his house this autumn.

Cheers from Jim in Wolfville, 542-9204
---------------------
Jim (James W.) Wolford
91 Wickwire Avenue 
Wolfville, Nova Scotia, Canada
B4P 1W3
phone (902)542-9204 (home)
fax (902)585-1059 (Acadia Univ. Biology Dept.)
e-mail <jimwolford@eastlink.ca>
----------------------
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