Who nibbled these clover leaves?

 

Clover leaflets neatly nibbled around their edges, probably by the clover leaf weevil Hypera postica (?)

Cycles of Abundance

As spring drifts into summer new insects appear on the scene, briefly flourish and then give way to another species. Recently we've had a virtual plague of St. Mark's flies, whose mating flights are beautifully described by Mark Cocker in today's Guardian Country Diary. This week, in my area at least, it's time for a mass emergence of this...

.....little metallic green weevil that seems to be on every stinging nettle leaf. It's Phyllobius pomaceus (identified with the help of B.N. Davis's excellent Insects of Nettles (Richmond Publishing Co. 1991)). This little weevil breeds on nettles, feeding on the leaves and at the moment every nettle bed has scores of them mating amongst the forest of stinging hairs on the host plant's leaves. They have a short season as adults and will have vanished again by early June, when their larvae feed underground.

This one has strayed onto a hawthorn leaf, overhanging the nettle bed.